Top sushi chefs licensed not to kill

WHEN it comes to sushi chefs in the United States, Juntaro Takagi is a cut above the rest because he is licensed not to kill.

Sushi chef Juntaro Takagi poses with a pufferfish or "fugu" at Japanese restaurant Chikubu in New York on December 30, 2001. Takagi is one of a handful of sushi chefs in the United States licensed to serve fugu, which contains a powerful poison that can kill a person within hours if it is not properly removed.

Takagi is one of a handful of sushi chefs in the United States who also holds a licence that allows him to serve pufferfish - a delicately flavoured fish packing a poison that can kill a person within hours.

Pufferfish, called "fugu" in Japanese, is considered the fish of death among sushi aficionados. It is a seasonal dish served typically in December and January.

One of the common ways to serve it is raw in wafer thin slices, often arranged on an exquisite platter to resemble the petals of a chrysanthemum, the flower of death in Japan.

About five or six people a year die from fugu poisoning in Japan and they are almost always amateur chefs who try to cut the fish themselves without undergoing the extensive licensing process required for fugu chefs.

There are numerous varieties of pufferfish, but the fugu of choice for connoisseurs is "torafugu". There are about 10 restaurants in New York that serve fugu, and perhaps less than 20 in the United States, chefs said.

Imports of the fish are regulated by the US Food and Drug Administration and served in restaurants according to regulations set by each state.

In New York, restaurants that serve fugu must import fish that have been detoxified in Japan by having the poisonous parts removed and then deep frozen and shipped to the United States.

New York restaurants, such as Yodo, Naniwa and Chikubu, where Takagi works, have fugu chefs who passed the rigorous licensing course from Japan's health ministry and they serve the imported, deep-frozen pufferfish.

"Fugu is the safest fish you can get at a restaurant" if properly sliced, Takagi said.

Unpleasant death

The poison in fugu is neurotoxin tetrodotoxin and although it is not always fatal, it can cause an unpleasant death. About 60 per cent of people who eat tainted fugu are killed, according to medical journals.

Within about three to 30 minutes of eating fugu tainted with the poison, victims show symptoms such as weakness, dizziness, a tingling tongue and mouth, nausea, diarrhea and sweating.

Paralysis spreads through the body while the victim remains conscious, and the victim goes into convulsions while breathing is constricted. A person can die of respiratory failure in about six to 24 hours, depending on the amount of toxin consumed, journals said.

Tetrodotoxin poisoning cases are rare in the United States, but medical journals reported that in 1996, three people were poisoned by tainted pufferfish imported from Japan by a co-worker. No one has ever been poisoned by eating fugu at a licensed restaurant in the country, New York sushi chefs insist.

But, if the poison doesn't get you, perhaps the price tag will.

Fugu is an expensive fish. In New York, a complete pufferfish course meal runs about $150 to $200 per person.

Rigorous training

Sushi chef Takagi said he serves fugu to about four or five customers a week, most of whom are Japanese.

Fugu first made its way to US restaurants in 1989, at the height of Japan's bubble economy. Japanese businessmen who were busy with deals such as purchasing Rockefeller Centre were flush with money and ready to spend big on both sides of the Pacific for lavish entertainment and fugu meals.

As the air went out of Japan's economy in the 1990s, so did a large chunk of the market for pufferfish in the United States.

Most of the fugu served in the United States is served in a few square blocks of midtown Manhattan, while other cities that are home to large Japanese companies, such as Los Angeles, San Francisco and Seattle, also have places where pufferfish is proudly served.

Japanese eat fugu without much fear or trepidation because of the confidence they have in licensed chefs.

It takes about 10 years to become a full-fledged fugu chef and the process starts with a rigorous training programme and test, in which potential chefs must show their mastery of about a dozen types of fugu and extracting poison from the fish.

(Agencies via Xinhua)