Dave Barry

There's something fishy here        February 9, 1998

ONE REASON international travel is so much fun is that you have an opportunity to eat exotic foreign foods that have unusual flavors and can kill you.

In Japan, the food that fits this description is called ``fugu.'' This is a type of blowfish that is considered a delicacy despite the fact that its liver and ovaries contain a deadly nerve poison. These organs are supposed to be removed before the fish is served, but every year a few people eat improperly prepared fugu and go to that Big Karaoke Bar in the Sky. No restaurant in the United States would think of serving such a dish without first requiring customers to sign 56 pages of legal waivers, but in Japan, where no food is too scary, where people eat sea urchins the way we eat M&M's, it is no big deal to chow down on the Blowfish of Doom.

In fact, in Nagano there is a restaurant, called Isshin, that serves nothing but fugu (suggested motto: ``All Fugu, All the Time''). So a group of us journalists decided to go there and try it out.

They started us off with a glass of sake with a fried blowfish fin in it. There also was a little plate with various mystery-food items, including a snail the size of a cocker spaniel. I passed on the snail, but I did eat some of the other mystery items, one of which was a little slippery glob of whitish stuff cut into a cube. Our Japanese interpreter, Emiko Doi, would not tell us what it was until we had all eaten it. Then she announced, in a cheerful voice: ``This is fish sperm!''

This announcement was greeted with a hearty round of gagging and some very tasteless jokes about a major world leader whose name I will not mention here except to say that it rhymes with ``Fresident Flinton.''

After the sperm course, the waitress brought in the blowfish that we were going to eat. The fugu is not a looker. It is a slimy lump with eyeballs. But we didn't want to be rude, so we admired the lump as though it were a fine oriental vase. We also asked the waitress, through Emiko, if there was any chance that we were going to die. She laughed, and, through Emiko, replied: ``They take all the poison part away. No person has been injured here in 20 years.'' (That would be a good way to advertise a fugu restaurant. You could have a McDonald's-style sign, only instead of saying ``Over 40 Billion Served,'' it would say ``Nobody Dead Yet!'')

So anyway, they served the fugu, and we ate it, and nobody died that I noticed. I cannot honestly say that the meal tasted good, but we were so happy to be alive we didn't care.

Afterward we went back to see the chef, who has the equivalent of a black belt in fugu. He showed us how to prepare one from scratch (Step 1: Cut out eyeballs). He even, as a special favor, let me hold the ovaries (he insisted that I wash my hand afterward, and I urge you to do the same whenever you handle blowfish ovaries).

So anyway, now that I've seen how it's done, I think I'll host a fugu dinner party when I get home. I'll serve my guests drinks (``You want a fried fin in that?'') and hors d'oeuvres (``Try this white glop!''). Then, while they're enjoying the main course, I, the gracious host, will call the paramedics.

OLYMPIC UPDATE: The actual Olympic Games per se have begun. The Iraqi biathlon team took the first five gold medals, but agreed to give them back after an exchange of gunfire. Also there is an alarming activity going on called ``curling.'' I will have more information on this, but not until I find a place that sells pizza.

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