Fugu Around and Find Out

A trip to Japan is always a promise of culinary adventures. The country is home to arguably the best fish and meat in the world, some of the most ludicrously pampered fruits you’ll ever lay eyes on, and a culture where cooking is elevated to an art form.

It’s also a place where food safety is taken so seriously that you can eat things raw or wildly undercooked without a second thought. Looking at you, Toriwasa.

Yes, overall, you’re safe. But there is one particular dish that absolutely is trying to kill you – while also being the ultimate “you’ve really been to Japan” culinary flex: fugu, the pufferfish.

Fugu contains a delightful little toxin called tetrodotoxin, found in its liver, ovaries, eyes, and skin. This poison, a sodium channel blocker, paralyzes the muscles while the victim stays fully conscious—unable to breathe and eventually dying from asphyxiation. A real “buried alive” experience, with a gourmet twist.

For the sake of Truffepig research (you’re welcome), on a casual Monday in Yamagata, one of Japan’s culinary heartlands, I bravely donated my body to the cause of dinner.

Enter: Chef Takeshi Suda

We head to the restaurant to meet Chef Takeshi Suda, a man whose cooking skills are only rivaled by his people skills. He’s part chef, part showman—the kind of person who makes a cooking class feel like a live performance, language barriers be damned. I’d heard he was known for preparing fugu right in front of guests—a messy job that most chefs prefer to do behind closed doors. Not Suda. He’s never one to shy away from danger, or a good spectacle.

My guide, Derek, tells me that today’s class will be… tempura. You’d think I’d be relieved that the greatest danger I’m now in is perhaps a little splash of hot oil. But no – I came here for the high-stakes fish. But, just when I resign myself to an afternoon of perfect crispy shrimp, Chef Suda reappears, brandishing a massive wild tiger fugu. I assume he’s just showing it off, but no—it’s game time.

After a few dramatic pre-match photos with the star of the show, Suda gets to work. With the precision of a surgeon, he methodically removes every lethal part, laying them out like a forensic scientist double-checking his work. The non-poisonous non-edible bits will be used for broth (yes, you read that right), while the flesh is carved into delicate sashimi.

As we gear up to taste it, his assistant brings out a small bowl of pickled fugu eggs. Fun fact: a single unpickled fugu egg can kill a human. But after two years of pickling, they become a prestigious delicacy. I pop some into my mouth, half-expecting instant death. Lips still functioning? Check. Thoughts and prayers to the countless souls who didn’t get the pickling process quite right—may they rest in peace.

But Wait, There’s More

Later in this trip, I also tried Toriwasa—a dish that takes “playing with fire” to a new level. Toriwasa is chicken tataki, where the meat is briefly seared on the outside, then dunked in ice water to keep the center raw. Yep, I ate raw chicken—because my commitment to research knows no bounds. Shockingly it’s delicious.

If there’s one place on Earth where all the rules are broken, and all the results taste good, it’s Japan.