Japanese eat “fugu.” However, probably there are many tourists who do not know about it.

Fugu is a poisonous fish, and it has a poison called tetrodotoxin in their body, which is 1,000 times more poisonous than Potassium cyanide. The amount of the poison depends on what kind of fugu as well as what part of the fish it is; if you eat its ovary or liver, which are really poisonous, you will feel numbness and nausea. In the worst case scenario, the poison can even cause death. In fact, 50% of death caused by poisoning was due to the poison of fugu which was cooked by laypeople.

In order not to repeat these incidents, there is a cooking license specifically for fugu, and each prefecture controls strictly. Thus, it is illegal to cook the fish if you do not have the license. In addition, the trash can that contains fugu’s poison is locked so that no one will eat the poison by mistake. Some of you may think that “Japanese are crazy because they bother taking out the poison of the fish and eat it,” however, this also indicates that fugu is worth doing all the work.

There are approximately 120 kinds of fugu, but of those kinds, only torafugu and mafugu are edible. Fugu cuisine is considered very fancy, and people enjoy the fish as nabe and karaage, but the most popular way of eating it is as sashimi. The fish is sliced thin enough to be seen the pattern of the traditional plate called imarizara, and the taste makes you smile.

In Shimonoseki or Kitakyushu regions, people call the fish “fuku” instead of “fugu,” and that means “happiness” in Japanese. In Osaka, people call it “teppou,” which means “guns” because the fish can kill you. Why don’t you try the fish to find out it is happiness or a gun?

Before trying “fugu,” please come to Sakura Currency Service that offers the best rates. We will let you know the popular fugu restaurants that have licensed fugu chefs because you should not be hit by a “gun.”