Chapter 31 eat fugu

Diet is for survival, but there is a delicacy that may kill you if you eat it. Everyone knows that this kind of food is puffer fish. The frightening thing about fugu poison is that it is inherently highly poisonous. In other words, a swollen puffer fish is a whole bottle of highly concentrated sage (sodium hydride).The toxicity of puffer fish is mainly caused by tetrodo toxin, which is 275 times more poisonous than cyanide.Moreover, this is a heat-stable toxin that cannot be destroyed even by repeated boiling.The mechanism of action of tetrodotoxin is to inhibit the transmission of sodium ions in nerve cells, thereby paralyzing the nerve cells and killing people.

In Taiwan, the average mortality rate of fugu poisoning cases is as high as 59%. The whole body of puffer fish except some muscles, its cortex, ovaries, liver, and intestines are highly toxic, especially the ovaries and liver.According to Japanese literature, the minimum lethal dose of this powerful nerve paralyzing toxin to humans is 10,000 Mu/g.A citizen of Taichung City once bought dried puffer fish as a snack, and felt his tongue was numb after eating it. After eating it, the cat and dog at home vomited on the spot, and the dog died.After the inspection, it was found that this package of unprocessed dried pufferfish contained 525Mu/g of pufferfish poison.

One weekend in early March, I was sitting in a restaurant in Jingjiang city (famous for its fugu) waiting for the fugu to be served, and the manager of the restaurant told me that even the most experienced fugu cooks sometimes make mistakes.There was once a senior local chef who cleaned and disinfected himself thoroughly as usual after handling puffer fish one day. After eating, he picked his teeth with his little finger and died on the spot.It turned out that there was a puffer fish roe hidden between the nails. In "The Revenge of Voodoo" in "X-Files", a kind of Haitian pufferfish poison appeared.Haitian wizards first dried the raw puffer fish, then ground it into powder, and then mixed it with talc, colorful sand and dyes to make something that looked like paint.In this episode of "X-Files", the soldier Mai Yaping died suddenly after driving a car into a tree. It was not the tree that killed the soldier, but the death pattern drawn on the trunk by a Haitian wizard with "pufferfish poison paint".

All kinds of statements and records about the poison of puffer fish are often creepy. In fact, the poison of puffer fish is not born to harm people. Fugu poison is undoubtedly deadly, but it is not a self-defense weapon of puffer fish, nor is it even a conventional weapon that it often uses.There is an inflatable sac in the belly of the puffer fish, which can be loosened or tightened like rubber. It will grow up when it inhales air or water, so it is also called "blowing fish".Cantonese people commonly call it "Chicken Soaked Fish", which also means it.When puffer fish encounter enemies in the water, they suck a lot of air or water into their stomachs, making their bodies double in size immediately, like a big ball, so that the enemies dare not attack rashly.In addition to self-defense, this "big belly" ability can also help it find food.Before looking for food in the sand, puffer fish first suck up enough water to make their stomachs swell, and then spout the water in their stomachs all at once, revealing the shellfish hidden under the sand.In addition, the dense thorns on the prickly puffer fish are not used for stabbing, but a protective color with the function of "false eyes", which is used to scare away the enemy.

Therefore, although fugu is poisonous, he does not take drugs or sell drugs. At best, he can only be regarded as a drug hider or a drug carrier. The ability to survive depends more on "scare". Puffer fish are highly poisonous, but they can't poison themselves. This is a bit like a thunderous snorer who can wake up a sound sleeper within a radius of ten meters but never wakes himself up.Experts from the Department of Agriculture of Tohoku University in Japan once revealed the reason why fugu poison is harmless to itself from a molecular perspective. The researchers analyzed the genetic genes of the surface container of puffer fish muscles and found that the structure of puffer fish muscle cells is different from that of humans. Among them The types and shapes of amino acids are also different from those of humans, and these amino acids in fugu do not bind to tetrodolin.

In addition to helping the research and development of tetrodotoxin detoxification drugs, the results of this research also seem to confirm the fact that tetrodotoxin is used only for human beings behind them.If you really can’t understand why the Creator gave puffer fish such a fierce toxin, you might as well think about why the Creator created such greedy human beings. Ouyang Wenzhong Gongji Mei Shengyu's "Puffer Poetry" says: "Chunzhou grows buds, spring banks fly poplar flowers", which means that puffer fish comes from late spring. As for the best production area of ​​puffer fish in China, it is not in the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River. Jiangsu is none other than. "Ming Jiajing Jiangyin County Chronicles" has a special record of puffer fish. Mr. Wang Zengqi wrote a table of delicious dishes in the novel, among which was "the puffer fish newly transported from Jiangyin" - a night in early March, the closest to eating puffer fish The best time, the "Huang Ming Festival" as the locals call it - a few days after the Ching Ming Festival was a little earlier, but after all, I was sitting on top of a brightly lit restaurant in Jingjiang.

The puffer fish was first brought to the court to verify its authenticity. This fish has a round belly, but a small and pointed mouth, no scales, and various patterns on its skin. It looks very kawaii, and it doesn't feel poisonous at all.Braised in soy sauce is the best cooking method of local chefs. The puffer fish tastes different from ordinary fish. It is tender and has the texture of crab meat.In addition, because the puffer fish has no ribs to block it, the skin of the abdomen was often inflated before it was alive, so it is very loose and delicious.However, there is a dense layer of small spines on the skin of puffer fish, which cannot be chewed, but can only be swallowed. Before swallowing, the spines of the fish skin must be rolled up, a bit like a table tennis racket with reversed rubber particles.

As for the puffer fish pancreas known as "Xi Shi milk", it is said to be the most exciting part of the whole body, but I am not sure if I have tasted it that night: one is because there are so many people, and the other is that the more I eat, the more I get caught by those bottom vegetables Attracted, the fat of the puffer fish is very rich and plump, and the fresh vegetables are placed under the fish and braised in brown sauce, which is delicious. Although the chef and the manager came in one after another to taste it in front of everyone, the fugu meat is still a little bit crispy, which makes people nervous-to be honest, without this fear, the taste of the fugu may be greatly reduced. .

Fan Chengda, a layman in Shihu, has a poem "Puffer Sigh" handed down: "Panghang is a famous fish, murderous and ferocious. It is not a health tool, but an anvil should be cool. Wu Nong is a real errand, and he is not blind. Donate a life Putting down the chopsticks, shrinking hands and sweating child servants. When the neutron is in the court, the greedy kiss is not familiar. The deep sleep is not enough, and a new ghost record has fallen. A hundred years of three-inch swallows, water and land are rich in delicacies. Nothing is on the zu, and it has not been in the belly of the general. For If the mouth forgets the body, there is no need to cry when gluttonous dies."

Fan Chengda is from Suzhou, and he is the most qualified to warn the world on the issue of puffer fish. Mei Yaochen also wrote five words entitled "Abstinence from Puffer Fish". , and those who sing the praises of the beauty of puffer fish are half-hearted gentlemen like Su Dongpo.It is said that Su Dongpo had a friend who knew how to cook but could not cook puffer fish. In order to let Su Yi taste the delicious food of puffer fish, he improvised to ask someone for advice. Observe Dongpo eating from behind the screen.After tasting it, Su Shi sighed and said, "It's worth dying!"

Although I often ride in a car driven by a friend who has just received a driver's license, and I strap myself on the front seat, whether Su Dongpo's bravery is out of gluttony or out of loyalty is still open to debate.In fact, under strict and meticulous treatment, the fugu poison is not as terrible as it is said, and the poison of the puffer fish eaten by the Chinese is not as high as that of the puffer fish eaten by the Japanese.In ancient times, if you really wanted to poison someone with fugu, you would give him "fugu {yuhui}", which is sashimi eaten by the Japanese, because it is the most poisonous.However, it is said that "Puffer Fish {Yuhui}" is the best way to eat puffer fish. It has the reputation of "red muscle and white lining, light enough to be blown up, as thin as a cicada's wing, and melts in the mouth". The first method of cooking puffer fish in Jiangsu is braised in soy sauce, the second is soup, and the third is making dumplings.A few years ago, with the approval of the Ministry of Health, a restaurant in a certain city in Jiaodong launched a "full meal of puffer fish", including stewed, steamed, braised, salt and pepper, raw food, etc.In fact, in ancient China, at least before the Song Dynasty, puffer fish were still eaten raw. The Japanese have been eating fugu since the Jomon period, but what they eat is the fugu that lives in the sea.Knowing that fugu is poisonous, it is not easy to eat it desperately. In addition, the Japanese who eat fugu have the word "brave" on their chests-not only are they not taboo, but they are also very sensitive to the poison of fugu and the poison it emits. The breath of death is exaggerated.For example, most of the fugu sashimi in Japanese restaurants are combined into a pattern of chrysanthemums on the plate, and chrysanthemums are the funeral flowers in Japan. Although the Japanese authorities have strict regulations on fugu chefs, who must hold a qualification certificate for processing fugu fish, according to Eckerman, author of "Natural History of the Senses," in Japan, "the most respected cooks who cook fugu will give The diner is left with the sensation of being in direct contact with the toxin...just a tingling sensation on the diner's lips, but not enough to actually kill him." Ekman writes in her book: "A small amount of tetrodotoxin the size of a fingernail is enough to kill a family. A mild tetrodotoxin overdose can cause the victim to be neurologically paralyzed, like a zombie. The victim is conscious, But they couldn't move. Occasionally, people who had been nearly buried alive by eating fugu poisoning discovered at the last minute that it was their own funeral and that they were about to be buried. Although they tried desperately to cry out to show they were alive, they just couldn't move. Therefore, if the deceased died after tasting a dish made of fugu, the funeral is usually postponed for a few days - in case the dead will be revived.In Osaka, which is rich in the best tiger fugu, fugu is also called "Northern Pillow", because according to the local custom, after death, the body must be placed with its head facing north. It is reported that since 2000, Jiangsu, Zhejiang, and Shanghai have begun to artificially raise a kind of puffer fish that is slightly poisonous or even non-toxic. I don’t know if this is good news or bad news for puffer fish lovers—if we Can understand why someone would orgasm in a brief asphyxia state. However, in Jiangsu’s aquatic product wholesale market, half a kilogram of wild puffer fish is already asking for RMB 1,500, while in Osaka, tiger puffer fish with a wholesale price of 28,000 yen in Shimonoseki have been transferred to Tokyo, and the price per kilogram will increase. Five thousand yen.In this situation, as Taiwanese female writer Liu Lier said: fear of eating puffer fish "is not so much pity for life as it is pity for money".