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Level -> The Deadliest Meal (5/9/2008 5:26:09 PM)
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quote:
Before I’d arrived at this dark, back-alley restaurant in Tokyo, I’d been told that trust was the most crucial element involved when choosing a fugu chef. It was like selecting a heart surgeon or a private pilot. “The fugu chef has your life in his hands,” one of my Japanese friends had said. Which is why my first impulse, upon greeting Mr. Naohisa Hashimoto, is to turn around, in the most diplomatic possible way, of course, and run screaming back to my hotel. Hashimoto is dressed in a white chef’s coat that’s slightly stained around the pockets with fish guts. He has a spiky haircut, like the wires on a brush, and big, prominent ears, which give him a passing resemblance to Don Knotts.
His little restaurant, called Mukoujima Hashimoto, is located on a lonely residential street in the working-class Sumida section of Tokyo (“If we are in New York, this is Queens,” my interpreter says), a tidy establishment with just three low-slung tables set over tatami matting. The chef lives above his place, like an old-time saloon keeper. Only tonight, there are no sounds of clattering pots coming from upstairs, no comforting pitter-patter of tiny children’s feet. There are no waiters, either; no dishwashers, no friendly neighbors dropping by for a cup of tea. As every food-obsessed traveler knows, the first rule when looking for a decent meal in a strange place is to choose a crowded room. But on this April Friday evening in otherwise bustling Tokyo, this curious little fugu restaurant is as empty as a tomb.
quote:
Tetrodotoxin is the name of the poison that collects in the fish, especially in the liver and ovaries. The compound is thought to be produced by shellfish that blowfish, notorious bottom-feeders, are fond of consuming.
Tetrodotoxin can cause a pleasing numbing sensation when eaten in tiny amounts, but if you ingest too much of the substance, nothing pleasant at all happens. The symptoms of tetrodotoxin poisoning include dizziness, exhaustion, and nausea. Eventually your muscles begin to freeze—first your lips and tongue, then the tips of your fingers, then your hands, then your arms and legs, and finally your heart and lungs. Victims typically remain conscious, but are eventually paralyzed and can’t move or speak. (In parts of Japan, legend has it, the bodies of fugu-overdose victims were once laid beside their open caskets for several days to ensure that they were not being buried alive.) The amount of tetrodotoxin required to kill a man can fit on the head of a pin. Tetrodotoxin poisoning has no known cure.
http://nymag.com/restaurants/features/46462
The only thing possibly more lethal would be eating Rosie O'Donnell...
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