National Geographic Taboo: Fugu

watching Taboo and they are discussing foods that people eat in different cultures that other view gross...The show is very nasty stuff. They are showing people eating male animal genitals, bird fetus from eggs, horse steaks and spiders. Kind of making me sick to my stomach to watch....:-X

What really got my attention was when they mentioned Fugu and showed what looked like a porcupine puffer. Said it is a delicicasy in Japan, however if not prepared properly it can be very deadly..something like 50 people a year die from Fugu!

I got on-line to see if they had anything on this particular taboo episode and could not find a whole lot, but did see that there is a FDA warning about eating pufferfish...its toxins are 1200 times more toxic then cyanide!!!!

US FDA/CFSAN - Consumer Advisory: Only Eat Puffer Fish from Known Safe Sources

so word of advice...when you dogface or porcupine dies...dont cook them up!!!

 

Fugu is possibly the most rediculous dish in the world. Not sure what thype of puffer it is made from, but there is one small bit of meat inside the fish that is safe to eat and everything else is extremely poisonous. Get the wrong bit and you have no chance. Apparentely chefs have to be specially licensed to serve fugu to show that they know what to cut out.

I see you also mentioned horse steak. Nothing wrong with that - V tasty.

 

I think that is one thing that this show might be trying to stress....other then playing the gross factor to some degree....that different cultures view different things as food. It is all in how you are raised and how your culture plays a part in it as to what you view as food

We eat cheese all the time...they said to Chinese they would absolutely find that nauseating...just as we find find many of their staples the same way!

Horse meat is just not something you see here in America....many of us are raised to view them like pets. However if raised in France or in other European nations it would not be so....I dont want to offend anybody by including horse meat in that category...it just is not something that I could try!

I think sadly our minds limit us on what we can and can not eat. I spent couple weeks in China several years back. I had a real awesome opportunity to travel with a group of Oncology nurses and discuss the differences of Western and Eastern medicine with different doctors and nurses in 3 locations in China. We also got to learn a lot about traditional Chinese Medicine

But food there was quite different. Unfortunately Americans are often times quite rude when we travel so we tried not to be...so we did not ask what anything was that we ate. I was so afraid I was going to get dog, cat or snake that I did not really eat much. I did not like most of food there but did find usually anything orange was ok (usually sweet and sour) and fish was good. On my last days there I was at this table with about 10 other people (all Americans) and I was just devouring this fish...best fish I had ever ate...usually fish always went fast. But nobody else was eating any. Plus everybody was sitting there looking at me...I thought oh well more for me....I finally had to ask what? They told me to turn around and look..right behind me was the fish tank that they kept the meal in...it was pure black water, the fish were fin to fin, tank was only full half way with water....no water movement what so ever....just these fish looking at you trying to breath...couple dead fish...with that when I looked a fish turned belly up and died. All the sudden the fish that was so good a second ago was making me sick to my stomach

Plus I tried 100 year old egg and cobra wine....the 100 year old egg really did not taste that bad except I was gagging and throwing up before I even tried it just because of the look of it....I could not get it down even though my taste buds was telling me it really did not have a taste...just my sight was telling me it was black. Cobra wine...that was a different story...taste as bad as it sounds...literally cobras in bottle

 

I didn't get to see that particular show but the bird fetus from eggs.......sounds like it would actually be what is called "Balut" and it's a food eaten in the Phillipines. It's actually a fertilized Duck egg but it only gets fertilized for like half of the period that it's supposed to have. I've actually tried this before. I couldn't hack it! YUCK!

 

I had horse and it was good. Little tougher than Beef but it was good. I have also eaten and love Rocky Mountian Oysters!

Swede, I think you got that a little bit confused, You can eat all the flesh of the puffer, but it is still mildly toxic. There is a gland or organ that contains the poison and you have to be trained how to prepare it so that this organ does not get cut.

The fins are also eaten, they are prepared by dipping in batter and fried. The deadly poison is tetrodotoxin and is found in genus of puffer fish called Takifugu which contains 25 species of Puffer fish.