They did not produce the toxin, researchers concluded, but had ingested it and developed immunity to it.īy this year, Noguchi had tested more than 7,000 fugu in seven districts in Japan that had been given only feed free of the tetrodotoxin-laden bacteria. In the last three decades, though, researchers in Japan, the United States and elsewhere found that a wide range of animals, including newts, flatworms, frogs and octopuses, had the same tetrodotoxin. Researchers surmised that fugu probably got the toxin by eating other animals that carried tetrodotoxin-laden bacteria, developing immunity over time - though scientists then did not rule out the possibility that fugu produced the toxin on its own. It was Noguchi who, over eight years, conducted a study underpinning what two decades of fish farming in Japan had already shown: that fugu could be made poison-free by strictly controlling its feed.ĭecades earlier, another Japanese scientist had identified fugu's poison as tetrodotoxin, a powerful neurotoxin that leaves victims mentally aware while they suffer paralysis and, in the worst cases, die of heart failure or suffocation. "They won't accept this for a long, long time." "They want to protect their vested interests," said Tamao Noguchi, a marine toxin specialist at Tokyo Healthcare University and a leading fugu expert. Shimonoseki's opposition, researchers and fish farmers said, is squelching the opening of new markets and depriving gourmands of the chance to sample fugu foie gras - which connoisseurs regard as more exquisite than the goose's (and which entails none of the ethical quandaries of force-feeding and is chock-full of healthful omega-3 fatty acids). Right now, Shimonoseki processes even nonpoisonous farmed fugu, because health authorities have yet to recognize officially that fugu can be made poison-free. Endorsing farmed fugu liver would be tantamount to acknowledging that Shimonoseki's role had become obsolete. Matsumura said fugu liver, whether farmed or wild, was simply too dangerous.īut researchers and fish farmers said Shimonoseki opposed the legalization of farmed fugu liver simply because it feared losing its grip on the fugu market. "Even if they talk about it in Edo," he said, using the ancient name for Tokyo, "no matter where they talk about it, it won't matter." At times he sounded like a man trying to stamp out unrest in the provinces, daring the rebellious to "go ahead" and waving them away as "a minority." Matsumura spoke recently in his large office at the fugu market here just after the daily 3:20 a.m.
And a group of scientists spreading awareness of farmed fugu liver across Japan served it in March at a Tokyo tasting event attended by some 40 chefs and restaurant-related businessmen. A town in another district applied to be designated a special farmed fugu liver-eating zone. But Shimonoseki's business, predicated on the fact that fugu is poisonous, now faces a threat with the poison-free, farmed fugu liver.Īlready, a district in Kyushu, south of here, defiantly serves it.
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