Fish meat is highly prized in Southeast Asian countries for its taste. In Japan, fugu, a dish made from several species of these fish, is particularly popular. The cook preparing it must have a diploma from a special school, since the skin and some internal organs of the fish are poisonous.

Description

The body of puffer fish is short and round. The skin is either bare or equipped with spines, which are adjacent to the body when at rest. There are no pelvic fins, the pectoral fins are well developed and allow movement both forward and backward. The head of the fish is large and thick, the mouth is small. The fused jaws form plates that look like 4 teeth (hence the name “four teeth”).

Sac-like outgrowths extend from the stomach of pufferfish. When danger appears, they fill with water or air, causing the fish to look like a swollen ball with protruding spines. The fish can swell by swallowing water if it is attacked. The spherical state makes the fish practically invulnerable. If, nevertheless, a sufficiently large predator tries to swallow such a ball, then it gets stuck in the throat of the predator, which subsequently dies. The fish themselves are carnivorous or omnivorous.

Classification

The family includes 26 genera and 188 species in two subfamilies:

  • Subfamily Tetraodontinae
    • Amblyrhynchotes Troschel, 1856 – Amblyrhynchotes
    • Arothron Müller, 1841 - Arotrons
      • Arothron hispidus- Spiny Arotron
      • Arothron meleagris- White-spot arotron
      • Arothron stellatus
    • Auriglobus Kotelat, 1999
    • Carinotetraodon Benl, 1957 - Carinotetraodons
    • Chelonodon Müller, 1841 – Marbled puffers
    • Chonerhinos Bleeker, 1854
    • Colomesus Gill, 1884 – Budgerigar puffers, or Colomesus
    • Contusus Whitley, 1947 - Contuses
    • Ephippion Bibron, 1855 - Ephippions
    • Feroxodon Su, Hardy & Tyler, 1986
    • Fugu Abe, 1952
    • Guentheridia Gilbert & Starks, 1904 – Guntheridia, or Gunther's pufferfish
    • Javichthys Hardy, 1985
    • Lagocephalus Swainson, 1839 – Lare's pufferfish
    • Marilyna Hardy, 1982
    • Monotrete Bibron, 1855 - Monotrets, or monotret pufferfish
    • Omegophora Whitley, 1934
    • Pelagocephalus Tyler & Paxton, 1979 - Pelagic dogfish
    • Polyspina Hardy, 1983
    • Reicheltia Hardy, 1982
    • Sphoeroides Anonymous, 1798 - Ballfishes, or dogfishes (genus)
    • Takifugu Abe, 1949 - Takifugu
    • Tetractenos Hardy, 1983
    • Tetraodon Linnaeus, 1758 – Pufferfish, or rocktooth, or fourtooth
    • Torquigener Whitley, 1930 – Torquigenera pufferfish
    • Tylerius Hardy, 1984 - Tilerius
  • Subfamily Canthigasterinae
    • Canthigaster Swainson, 1839 – Sharp-snouted pufferfish
      • Canthigaster valentini- Black-striped pufferfish

The following genera of the family are richest in species: Tetraodon, Sphaeroides, Lagocephalus .

Freshwater puffers

Some pufferfish live in fresh waters. First of all, these are representatives of the pufferfish genus ( Tetraodon): fahak ( T. fahaka) - lives in the Nile, Niger, Lake Chad; mbu ( T. mbu) - lower and middle reaches of the Congo River; Another seven species of freshwater pufferfish live in the waters of the West Indies and northeastern South America, including the Amazon. Many freshwater puffers have become favorites of aquarists.

Virulence

Many species of the pufferfish family are poisonous. Toxins are found in the skin, peritoneum and some internal organs fish - liver, intestines, gonads, caviar. The most dangerous of them is tetrodotoxin, which is the strongest natural nerve poison. If it enters the digestive tract, it causes severe pain, convulsions and usually leads to death.

The first descriptions of the signs of tetrodotoxin poisoning were given in his diary by the English navigator James Cook. The natives of New Caledonia fed Cook and two naturalists on his expedition with rocktooth fish:

“Only liver and milk were served on the table, which both Forster and I barely touched. About three or four o'clock in the morning we felt an unprecedented weakness in all members, accompanied by a sensation as if our arms and legs, numb in the cold, had immediately fallen into fire. I no longer felt almost anything and even lost the ability to measure the weight of bodies: a mug of water with a capacity of one quart and a pen seemed equally heavy in my hand.”

Modern scientists have established that the fish belonged to the species Pleuranacanthus seleratus family of rocktooths.

In culture

Write a review about the article "Pufferfish"

Notes

  1. Makushok V. M. Order Pufferfish, or Cliff-toothed (Tetraodontiformes) // Animal Life. Volume 4. Lancelets. Cyclostomes. Cartilaginous fish. Bony fishes / ed. T. S. Rassa, ch. ed. V. E. Sokolov. - 2nd ed. - M.: Education, 1983. - P. 505. - 575 p.
  2. Nelson Joseph S. Fishes of the world fauna / Transl. 4th rev. English ed. Bogutskaya N. G., scientific. editors Nasek A.M., Gerd A.S. - M.: Book house "LIBROKOM", 2009. - P. 622. - ISBN 978-5-397-00675-0.
  3. Biological encyclopedic Dictionary/ Ch. ed. M. S. Gilyarov; Editorial team: A. A. Baev, G. G. Vinberg, G. A. Zavarzin and others - M.: Sov. encyclopedia, 1986. - P. 220. - 100,000 copies.
  4. - article from the Great Soviet Encyclopedia
  5. Sokolovsky A. S., Dudarev V. A., Sokolovskaya T. G., Solomatov S. F. Fishes of the Russian waters of the Sea of ​​Japan: an annotated and illustrated catalog. - Vladivostok: Dalnauka, 2007. - P. 163. - 200 p. - ISBN 978-5-8044-0750-7
  7. Reshetnikov Yu. S., Kotlyar A. N., Rass T. S., Shatunovsky M. I. Five-language dictionary of animal names. Fish. Latin, Russian, English, German, French. / under the general editorship of academician. Fugu & Tako (English) on the Internet Movie Database

Excerpt characterizing Pufferfish

Three weeks after his last evening with the Rostovs, Prince Andrei returned to St. Petersburg.

The next day after her explanation with her mother, Natasha waited the whole day for Bolkonsky, but he did not come. The next, third day the same thing happened. Pierre also did not come, and Natasha, not knowing that Prince Andrei had gone to his father, could not explain his absence.
Three weeks passed like this. Natasha did not want to go anywhere and, like a shadow, idle and sad, she walked from room to room, cried secretly from everyone in the evening and did not appear to her mother in the evenings. She was constantly blushing and irritated. It seemed to her that everyone knew about her disappointment, laughed and felt sorry for her. With all the strength of her inner grief, this vain grief intensified her misfortune.
One day she came to the countess, wanted to tell her something, and suddenly began to cry. Her tears were the tears of an offended child who himself does not know why he is being punished.
The Countess began to calm Natasha down. Natasha, who had been listening at first to her mother’s words, suddenly interrupted her:
- Stop it, mom, I don’t think, and I don’t want to think! So, I traveled and stopped, and stopped...
Her voice trembled, she almost cried, but she recovered and calmly continued: “And I don’t want to get married at all.” And I'm afraid of him; I have now completely, completely calmed down...
The next day after this conversation, Natasha put on that old dress, which she was especially famous for the cheerfulness it brought in the morning, and in the morning she began her old way of life, from which she had fallen behind after the ball. After drinking tea, she went to the hall, which she especially loved for its strong resonance, and began to sing her solfeges (singing exercises). Having finished the first lesson, she stopped in the middle of the hall and repeated one musical phrase that she especially liked. She listened joyfully to the (as if unexpected for her) charm with which these shimmering sounds filled the entire emptiness of the hall and slowly froze, and she suddenly felt cheerful. “It’s good to think about it so much,” she said to herself and began to walk back and forth around the hall, not walking with simple steps on the ringing parquet floor, but at every step shifting from heel (she was wearing her new, favorite shoes) to toe, and just as joyfully as I listen to the sounds of my own voice, listening to this measured clatter of a heel and the creaking of a sock. Passing by the mirror, she looked into it. - "Here I am!" as if the expression on her face when she saw herself spoke. - “Well, that’s good. And I don’t need anyone.”
The footman wanted to enter to clean something in the hall, but she did not let him in, again closing the door behind him, and continued her walk. This morning she returned again to her favorite state of self-love and admiration for herself. - “What a charm this Natasha is!” she said again to herself in the words of some third, collective, male person. “She’s good, she has a voice, she’s young, and she doesn’t bother anyone, just leave her alone.” But no matter how much they left her alone, she could no longer be calm and she immediately felt it.
The entrance door opened in the hallway, and someone asked: “Are you at home?” and someone's steps were heard. Natasha looked in the mirror, but she did not see herself. She listened to sounds in the hall. When she saw herself, her face was pale. It was he. She knew this for sure, although she barely heard the sound of his voice from the closed doors.
Natasha, pale and frightened, ran into the living room.
- Mom, Bolkonsky has arrived! - she said. - Mom, this is terrible, this is unbearable! – I don’t want... to suffer! What should I do?…
Before the countess even had time to answer her, Prince Andrei entered the living room with an anxious and serious face. As soon as he saw Natasha, his face lit up. He kissed the hand of the Countess and Natasha and sat down near the sofa.
“We haven’t had the pleasure for a long time...” the countess began, but Prince Andrei interrupted her, answering her question and obviously in a hurry to say what he needed.
“I wasn’t with you all this time because I was with my father: I needed to talk to him about a very important matter.” “I just returned last night,” he said, looking at Natasha. “I need to talk to you, Countess,” he added after a moment of silence.
The Countess, sighing heavily, lowered her eyes.
“I am at your service,” she said.
Natasha knew that she had to leave, but she could not do it: something was squeezing her throat, and she looked discourteously, directly, with open eyes at Prince Andrei.
"Now? This minute!... No, this can’t be!” she thought.
He looked at her again, and this look convinced her that she was not mistaken. “Yes, now, this very minute, her fate was being decided.”
“Come, Natasha, I’ll call you,” the countess said in a whisper.
Natasha looked at Prince Andrei and her mother with frightened, pleading eyes, and left.
“I came, Countess, to ask for your daughter’s hand in marriage,” said Prince Andrei. The countess's face flushed, but she said nothing.
“Your proposal...” the countess began sedately. “He was silent, looking into her eyes. – Your offer... (she was embarrassed) we are pleased, and... I accept your offer, I’m glad. And my husband... I hope... but it will depend on her...
“I’ll tell her when I have your consent... do you give it to me?” - said Prince Andrei.
“Yes,” said the countess and extended her hand to him and, with a mixed feeling of aloofness and tenderness, pressed her lips to his forehead as he leaned over her hand. She wanted to love him like a son; but she felt that he was a stranger and a terrible person for her. “I’m sure my husband will agree,” said the countess, “but your father...
“My father, to whom I told my plans, made it an indispensable condition of consent that the wedding should take place no earlier than a year. And this is what I wanted to tell you,” said Prince Andrei.
– It’s true that Natasha is still young, but for so long.
“It couldn’t be otherwise,” said Prince Andrei with a sigh.
“I will send it to you,” said the countess and left the room.
“Lord, have mercy on us,” she repeated, looking for her daughter. Sonya said that Natasha is in the bedroom. Natasha sat on her bed, pale, with dry eyes, looking at the icons and, quickly crossing herself, whispering something. Seeing her mother, she jumped up and rushed to her.
- What? Mom?... What?
- Go, go to him. “He asks for your hand,” the countess said coldly, as it seemed to Natasha... “Come... come,” the mother said with sadness and reproach after her running daughter, and sighed heavily.

I've never eaten fugu soup. I had a chance to eat shark fin soup. It's really tasty. Vietnamese pho soup is very tasty too. I tried kangaroo tail soup, turtle soup, even tomato soup with bananas (this one is, generally speaking, not for everyone). But I have never eaten fugu soup. And I know for sure: even if they ever offer it to me, I will firmly refuse.

In order to eat fugu, you must first be a brave person. Secondly, a cold-blooded person. Thirdly, you must be a convinced gourmet. Finally, you have to be at least a little Japanese. Because fugu is only eaten in Japan.

And outside the Country rising sun Fugu, on the contrary, is not eaten. And they even throw them out of the nets.

The fact is that fugu, strictly speaking, is a poisonous fish. And even very much so. Its insides contain a substance that is 25 times more powerful than the well-known curare and 275 times more toxic than cyanide. If even the slightest dose of poison enters the human body, severe poisoning will follow, most likely with a fatal outcome. Sixty percent of all cases of fugu meat poisoning in Japan result in death.

Most of the poison accumulates in the liver of the fish, and the method of neutralizing it is very unreliable. Meanwhile, it is fugu liver that is considered the highest delicacy. Japanese restaurateurs are strictly forbidden to serve this liver on the table, but sometimes the chef will give in to the client's request, and then... No, it doesn't have to be drama. The client may well get up from the table cheerful and cheerful. Thousands, millions of Japanese eat fugu prepared by the hands of experienced chefs, consuming about one and a half thousand tons of this fish per year. But this also happens: with complete clarity of thought, your arms and legs suddenly go numb. The person loses coordination of movements. The head works clearly, but the tongue does not obey: the person cannot speak, and sometimes cannot even clearly communicate the trouble to others. Then - paralysis of the musculoskeletal system. And - as a tragic ending - respiratory arrest.

We will not examine the question here: why do the Japanese revere fugu so much and dare to eat its such insidious meat? This is a matter for psychologists. We are more interested in the fish itself and everything connected with it.

It is difficult to establish exactly when poisonous fugu began to be eaten on the Japanese Islands. But there is a documented case of Europeans meeting it.

This happened during the second circumnavigation of the famous James Cook. In 1774, the ship "Resolution" dropped anchor near the newly discovered island, which Cook gave the name New Caledonia. The clerk, who took care of the provisions, exchanged strange fish from the natives, which none of the Europeans had ever seen. Naturalists J. Reinhold Forster and his son George, who were on board the Resolution, sketched the fish, then the cook took it to the galley to cut it.

“Fortunately for us,” Captain Cook later wrote in his diary, “the procedure for drawing and copying the fish took so much time... that only liver and caviar were served on the table, which both Mr. Forster and I personally barely touched. About three or four o'clock in the morning we were seized by an extraordinary weakness in all the limbs, accompanied by numbness and a sensation similar to that of an arm or leg, stung by frost, suddenly exposed to an open fire. I almost completely lost the sense of feeling, I also could not distinguish a light body from a heavy one, a pot with a quart of water and a feather were equal in my hand. Each of us indulged in vomiting, and after this profuse sweat came out, which brought great relief.

What kind of fish is this that brings death and which is nevertheless eaten with pleasure on the Japanese Islands?

Fugu is the Japanese name for puffer fish. This family of fish from the order of fused-jawed fish has many names. Pufferfish, four-toothed, rock-toothed, dogfish... Related families from the same order are called: boxfish, two-toothed (they are also hedgehog fish)... The pufferfish, which is found off the Hawaiian Islands, is known as the “death fish” " Its bile was used to lubricate arrowheads: the poison brought certain death to the enemy.

In pufferfish, the fused jaw bones form four plates (hence one of the names), and the entire dental apparatus resembles the beak of a parrot. The skin of the fish is equipped with spines.

Pufferfish are one of the most mysterious sea ​​creatures. Perhaps these are the most poisonous fish in the world's oceans. Most hallmark theirs is the ability to inflate their body, turning it into a ball bristling with spines. Being frightened or excited, the pufferfish absorbs water (or air - it’s all the same to him) into bags located in the abdominal cavity - the volume of the fish increases three times - and remains “inflated” until the cause of stress disappears. The four-tooth holds the contents of the bags very tightly and does not give up, even if it is pulled onto land. An adult man can stand on a swollen pufferfish and not think about letting out the water.

By the way, the strength of the skin of the pufferfish was noticed by the ancient Egyptians: after gutting the fish and stuffing it with algae, they used the resulting “ball” when playing with balls. For this reason or for some other reason, the four teeth were immortalized by the Egyptians. Images of fish-dogs are found on the tombs of the V dynasty - and this is a very deep history: the twenty-seventh century BC.

The largest specimens of pufferfish reach a meter in length and weigh up to fourteen kilograms. Not much is known about the life of these fish underwater. Presumably, they are predators and use their beaks as military weapons: they tear crabs into pieces, open bivalves, crack corals, attack sea ​​urchins And starfish. Using their abdominal sacs as a water-jet apparatus, they carry out “stripping operations” at the bottom, looking for prey under a layer of sand. There are cases where pufferfish have bitten through wire and rusted fishing hooks. Finally, the following fact was recorded: in one of the restaurants in Tokyo, fugu, which ended up on the cutting table, did not accept its sad fate and burped the chef’s finger.

Pufferfish have very mobile, iridescent eyes that shimmer green and blue. Some species are characterized by photochromia: the lenses of their eyes change transparency depending on the intensity of light.

The features of four-prongs can be listed for a long time. For example, this detail: under their eyes there are tiny tentacles with... nostrils. These are indeed the organs of smell. Fish-dogs (this is, perhaps, the only motive that justifies this name) are able to distinguish odors in water in approximately the same way as sniffer dogs distinguish them in the air.

Finally, another point that cannot be missed when describing our heroes is their method of swimming. They do not swim, but walk in the water. That is why, when describing their habits, the phrase “supposedly predators” was used. It is not very clear how, with such clumsiness, four-teeth can attack fast-moving prey - for example, crabs.

Compared to most fish, the fourtooth has very few bones in its body. For example, the ribs and abdominal bones are completely absent - their role is played by powerful abdominal muscles. The flaccid fins have no radial bones. Four-teeth drift languidly in the thickness of the ocean waters, moving their dorsal and rear fins in waves. The two pectoral fins flutter slightly, keeping the fish on course. And the tail, which serves as the main mover for the vast majority of marine inhabitants, serves only as a rudder in pufferfish...

The veneration of fugu in Japan over the centuries has developed into a genuine cult. In one of the parks in Tokyo there is a monument to this fish. Near Osaka there is a famous temple where there is a tombstone specially carved in honor of the fugu. Lamps and candlesticks are made from pufferfish; there are many workshops that specialize in making kites, depicting - of course, stylized - a fugue.

But the main meeting between man and fugu takes place in a restaurant. Here the gourmet literally entrusts his fate into the hands of the chef. All chefs who want to cook fugu must have a special license, and this cannot be obtained without a long apprenticeship - up to two years - and rigorous written and practical exams. The practice test looks like this. The candidate is given twenty minutes, during which he must cut the fugu and prepare sashimi from it (this is the name of a dish of raw fish, served with a spicy sauce made from soy, horseradish and other spices). If a candidate makes even one mistake, he will not see a license until the next exam, which will not be due until two years later.

And yet, chefs sometimes make mistakes. And then things take a dramatic turn. According to statistics, over the past ten years in Japan, more than two hundred people have died from fugu poisoning. True, defenders of the national delicacy note, most of these people died at home - they tried to cook fugu themselves, but failed to cope with the task.

The complex art of cooking fugu requires the cook to perform thirty operations, and even the most experienced cooks take at least twenty minutes to complete. Particularly popular among gourmets is not fugu soup, but raw blowfish meat - sashimi.

With quick blows of a “hocho” - a sharp and thin knife - the cook separates the fins, cuts off the mouthparts and opens the belly of the fugu. Then he carefully removes the poisonous parts - liver, ovaries, kidneys, eyes, removes the skin - it is no less poisonous - and begins to cut the fillet into the thinnest pieces. Next, all meat must be thoroughly washed with running water to remove the slightest traces of blood and poison. And finally, the final stage comes. Having chopped the meat finely - the slices should be no thicker than paper - the cook places translucent, matte, “diamond” pieces of fillet on the dish, creating a picture. A picture in the literal sense of the word. This could be a landscape, or an image of a butterfly, or an image of a flying crane with outstretched wings and an outstretched neck. (The crane in Japan, by the way, is a symbol of longevity.)

That's it... Now, if anyone is interested, you can try sashimi. This is how a brave non-Japanese describes the impressions of a dinner during which he dared to taste the incomparable fugu meat.

“I believed that I would be committing a crime by destroying the “picture” on my plate. But, encouraged by the restaurant owner, I grabbed one of the diamond crane feathers with my chopsticks and dipped it in the seasoning mixed from soy sauce, radish and red pepper. It’s strange - I didn’t feel any danger, but with every sip my excitement grew. The meat does not have a fibrous structure at all; its consistency is most similar to gelatin. Very light taste. More chicken than fish, there is only a hint that it is a product of the sea. Someone very subtly noted that the taste of fugu is reminiscent of Japanese painting: something subtle and elusive. And besides, it’s very smooth, like Japanese silk...”

The poison found in various organs of fugu is called tetrodotoxin. When dry it is a white powder. From one medium-sized pufferfish, very little is obtained - only a few tens of milligrams. And yet this quantity is enough to kill thirty people. By the way, why tetrodotoxin does not act on the pufferfish itself is also a mystery to scientists. In dissolved form, this substance serves as an anesthetic and is used as an analgesic for neuralgia, arthritis and rheumatism.

Of course, this product must be used with great caution. The lethal dose for humans is one milligram. No known antidote for tetrodotoxin...

And yet, despite the threat to life, Japanese gourmets eat pufferfish in such quantities that recently the problem of depleting pufferfish populations has become acute. Moreover, this applies equally to all types of fish-dogs that are used for food - danger looms over both tiger puffers (the most revered) and mackerel... More and more pufferfish are bred in artificial conditions, the achievements of Mari culture penetrated into this area. And why? To put new foodies at risk?

No, it's better to leave these questions unanswered. Let's not dive into the depths of national psychology. The inconsistency of the cult of fugu has long been recorded in Japanese folklore.

For as many centuries as the Japanese have eaten fugu at the risk of their lives, there has been a saying for just as many centuries: “Those who eat fugu soup are stupid people. But those who don’t eat fugu soup are also stupid people.”

Pufferfish are called by different names depending on the culture and country. People can give them a name: puffer fish, ball fish, Puffers, lackeys... In Russian translation, this fish is called dog fish.

Pufferfish have a strange morphology.

The outer spines of Blowfish are large and poisonous. You must be careful with puffer fish - they are poisonous. People believe that the ball fish is the second most poisonous vertebrate animal. The first most poisonous vertebrate is the golden poison frog.

Tetrodotoxin is the toxin that is found in the internal organs of dogfish. It is located on the skin and liver. When the fish is eaten, it gives poisoning.

But even though the fish is poisonous, it is considered a tasty food in Japan. Only a trained chef knows how to remove or neutralize the poison from this fish.

The dog fish is seen as tasty food in Asia. In Japan it is called fugu, and in China it is hentun fish. Koreans call it bogeo.

Pufferfish come in large, medium and small sizes. The maximum length they reach is 100 cm.


Pufferfish live in a temperate climate zone, cold water and in the tropics.

These fish can be found not only in seawater, but living in estuarine zones and coastal waters of the freshwater region. There are 25 species of pufferfish in South-East Asia, one view in South America and three species in Central Africa.

Blowfish propel themselves using a combination of caudal, anal, dorsal and pectoral fins. These are slow-moving animals. That's why they are so easy for a predator.

The inflated body of the fish is unique. A pompous body is a defense mechanism. The animal has an elastic stomach filled with water or air to create a voluminous body. In addition, the body has sharp thorns and toxins.

I decided to bring up another old post of mine with my photos.

Original taken from igor_nefedov in Pufferfish, or puffer fish


Probably, every diver has his own preferences and favorite underwater inhabitants to observe. Someone specially travels to observe various types sharks, and some people like to photograph nudibranchs (nudibranchs). For me, one of my favorite objects in sea and ocean waters, for many years now, remains different types pufferfish, which are found almost everywhere in the tropics, including in freshwater bodies.


The behavior of these fish is fascinating because of their curiosity, which creates the impression of them as completely intelligent creatures. Their distinctive feature is the ability, thanks to their pectoral fins, to swim backwards, which is extremely rare in marine fauna. Finally, another point that cannot be missed when describing our heroes is the method of swimming. They do not swim, but walk in the water.

The body of puffer fish is short and round. The skin is either bare or equipped with spines, which are adjacent to the body when at rest. The head of the fish is large and thick, the mouth is small. The fused jaws form plates that look like 4 teeth (hence the name “four teeth”). In total, the pufferfish family has more than 90 species.

Of course, most people know pufferfish better from Fugu, a Japanese dish made from certain species. poisonous fish family of pufferfish containing tetrodotoxin poison. Also, many species of fish in this family are often incorrectly called “puffer fish”. In Japan, fugu is considered a delicacy and is very popular. Most often, the fish used to prepare fugu is the brown scallop fish. In any case, the fish from which the dish is prepared contains a lethal dose of tetrodotoxin, the concentration of which must be reduced to acceptable levels during the cooking process. Fugu is consumed both to “tickle one’s nerves” and to obtain a slight euphoric effect caused by the residual amount of poison preserved in the dish.


It is difficult to establish exactly when poisonous fugu began to be eaten on the Japanese Islands. But there is a documented case of Europeans meeting it.

This happened during the second circumnavigation of the famous James Cook. In 1774, the ship "Resolution" dropped anchor near the newly discovered island, which Cook gave the name New Caledonia. The clerk, who took care of the provisions, exchanged strange fish from the natives, which none of the Europeans had ever seen. Naturalists J. Reinhold Forster and his son George, who were on board the Resolution, sketched the fish, then the cook took it to the galley to cut it.

“Fortunately for us,” Captain Cook later wrote in his diary, the procedure for drawing and describing the fish took so much time that only the liver and caviar were served on the table, which both Mr. Forster and I personally barely touched. About three or four hours before midnight we were seized by an extraordinary weakness in all members, accompanied by numbness and a sensation similar to that of an arm or leg, stung by frost, suddenly exposed to an open fire. I almost completely lost the sense of feeling, and I also could not distinguish a light body from a heavy one. a pot with a quart of water and a pen were equally in my hand. Each of us indulged in vomiting, and after this a profuse sweat broke out, which brought great relief.

In the morning, one of the pigs that had devoured the entrails of the fish was found dead..."

The pufferfish, which is found off the Hawaiian Islands, is known as the "death fish." Its bile was used to lubricate arrowheads: the poison brought certain death to the enemy.

Their most distinctive feature is the ability to inflate their body, turning it into a ball bristling with spines. Being frightened or excited, the pufferfish absorbs water (or air - it’s all the same to him) into bags located in the abdominal cavity - the volume of the fish increases three times - and remains “inflated” until the cause of stress disappears. The four-tooth holds the contents of the bags very tightly and does not give up, even if it is pulled onto land. An adult man can stand on a swollen pufferfish and not think about letting out the water.

By the way, the strength of pufferfish skin was noticed by the ancient Egyptians, who gutted the fish and stuffed it with algae, and used the resulting “ball” when playing bowls. For this reason or for some other reason, the four teeth were immortalized by the Egyptians. Are there images of fish-dogs on the tomb? The dynasty has a very deep history: the twenty-seventh century BC.

Not much is known about the life of these fish underwater. Presumably, they are predators and use their beak as a military weapon: they tear crabs into pieces, open bivalves, crack corals, attack sea urchins and starfish. Using their abdominal sacs as a water-jet apparatus, they conduct “stripping operations” at the bottom, searching for prey under a layer of sand. There are cases where pufferfish have bitten through wire and rusted fishing hooks. Finally, the following fact was recorded: in one of the restaurants in Tokyo, fugu, which ended up on the cutting table, did not accept its sad fate and burped the chef’s finger.

Research has shown that, in fact, the pufferfish is not capable of producing a neurotoxin, but only accumulates it in its body. Initially, tetrodotoxin is produced by marine bacteria, which are then eaten by a variety of living organisms. The puffer fish becomes toxic only through food.