Puffer fish

Puffer is a small fish, inhabiting the Pacific and Indian oceans. Also it is called fugu, diodont, fahak, dog. This fish can swim its tail forward, because it does not have scales, but smooth skin, but at the moment of danger it can swell and turn into a spiny ball.

But the most important feature of puffer fish is that it contains the poison tetrodotoxin, deadly to humans. More poison is concentrated in the liver, intestines, skin, milk. In one fish contains such quantity of a poison which is capable to kill not one ten person . But it’s correct to say that the fugue is the name of a dish prepared from poisonous pufferfish. And this dish began to be produced in ancient Japan. And then, and in our time, puffer fish is the most expensive and desired dish of the Japanese.

Today is not a poisonous species of these fish. The secret, it turns out, is quite simple. The fish becomes poisonous not from “birth”, growing up, it eats poisonous simple organisms and other poisonous sea inhabitants. It accumulates this poison in itself.

And yet the deadly risk does not stop the thrill-seekers and puffer fish is still very popular.

In its composition, puffer  meat contains vitamins PP, vitamin D and A.

Poison puffer  is used in the treatment of patients with rheumatism, neuralgia, arthritis. It also has a beneficial effect on the aging body and can prevent many diseases.

Cutting and cooking of this fish is a whole art, because the wrongly cut fish can lead to instant death of a person. The cook, in order to have the right to cook and serve this fish, must pass a course of study and withstand a difficult examination.

This dish is served in a special order, first the meat of the back, it is the least toxic, then the meat is closer to the abdomen, where the concentration of the poison increases (calorizator). Meat should be thinly cut, its thickness should be no more than the thickness of a sheet of paper. There is an opinion that once you try this fish, you will want to try it more than once. The action of the poison in small doses can be compared with the action of drugs or is psychological addiction. Studies in this regard have not been conducted.