Japan Roulette

Despite of abundance of the modern market, there is a fish that cannot be bought in shop. And the reason not in its rarity. To the businessman, risked to start a selling this fish, there is a threat to be condemned under clause "involuntary murder". The matter is that in a body of a fish there is a poison in tens times more toxic, than the well-known poison "curare", and in hundreds times is stronger some potassium cyanide. Nevertheless, this fish is edible and is in demand. You, certainly, have already guessed, that it is a legendary fugu fish. Strictly speaking, "fugu" is the Japanese name of several kinds of the fishes which belong to numerous family of blowfishes which are called also puffers or swell-fishes, and on Latin Tetraodontidae.

On appearance blowfish it is difficult enough to confuse with habitual for us food fishes. They have usually thick truncated body, a big head, wide round back, absent back and belly fins, and rear back and anal fins are shifted far towards the tail looking short and high. The naked skin, is covered by short thorns here and there. Perhaps, the most characteristic difference - a small mouth, having each jaw supplied by pair of accrete dental plates, which look appear like a short beak. By means of such oral device, fish-dog scratch out from solid surfaces polyps which they eat. Chest fins are supplied by special muscles which allow a fish to move not only forward, but also back, that considerably increases its maneuverability. One more feature tetrodontid - presence in a abdominal cavity of a special big bag which, in case of danger, they can quickly pump up water or air. In inflated state the fish is almost impregnable for predators, and its skin is so strong, that easily stands weight of the adult person. By the way, ancient Egyptians made balls of these fishes. As Japan's Ministry of Health has informed recently , the Japanese scientists grow a nontoxical kind of fugu fishes (Japanese blowfish).

Eating fresh meat of this fish was always similar to playing in " Russian roulette " because of the strongest poison, containing in its caviar, a liver and interiors. That's why cooking a fugu was licensed. According to statistics, in 2003 three Japanese have died, having poisoned with a fugu, prepared by non-licensed cooks.

Researchers from university of Nagasaki in the south of Japan have found a way of elimination of its toxicity by means of change of a fish diet . Blowfish becomes poisonous, eating poisonous food, for example starfishes and shell rocks, instead of making poison in the organism. Therefore we have put it on a nonpoisonous diet ", - such words are given in the message of biologist-oceanologist Osamy Arakava. Since 2001 till 2003 the group of professor Arakava fed about 5 thousand fugus exclusively with a mackerel and other nontoxical food. Analyses taken monthly have shown, that the amount of tetrodoxin in a fish was zero. While the new way of fugu cultivation did not become mass, however popularity of this kind of a fish grows. Resorts on hot wells in area of Nagasaki try to get the sanction from the government to cook to lodgers a liver of nonpoisonous fugu, however officials are very cautious. " Discovery is rather significant from the scientific point of view, but it does not mean, that it is possible to guarantee at once safety, - the representative of Ministry of Health of Japan Masanory Imangava has declared. - When the question is about a fugu, it is impossible to make errors".