A Japanese 10-year-old has become the youngest person authorized to prepare “fugu” pufferfish — a delicacy that can kill if its poisonous parts are not properly removed.
Fifth grader Karin Tabira passed a test this summer that means she is now certified to slice and gut the fish for consumption.
She recently used her new skills to serve a platter of paper-thin slices of fugu sashimi to the governor of southern Kumamoto region where she lives.
“Would you like some of this delicios puffer fish? It could very possibly kill you.”
“No.”
“What if I told you it was also super expensive?”
“NO!”
“What if I told you it was prepared by a 10-year-old?”
“NO!”
Sounds similar to people trying to get me into alcohol, never liked it much, but everyone always keeps pushing it as if I need to “learn” to drink it.
Fucking no. It’s disgusting. I like my occasional light alcohol drink but I ain’t chug down litres and piss it, and my money, away because it’s “cool”.
I’m fine with some alcohol, but some people are like that specifically with beer with me.
I just don’t care for it. I keep getting the “you just haven’t had the right kind of beer!” line and then I try their suggested beer and I do not like it.
Some people can’t accept that you just don’t like the taste of something they enjoy. But it happens in weird ways. No one tells me I just haven’t had the right banana yet when I tell them I don’t like bananas.
Different people have different tastes, and some folks are just not going to like certain flavor profiles.
Within beer though, there is so much variety, I’d be shocked if there wasn’t at least one beer out there that you’d thoroughly enjoy. It’s just not likely worth the effort of finding that one.
This reminds me of when I went to a restaurant with some friends and we had a variety of beers to taste. I’m not a big drinker, and have never liked beer, but whatever, it won’t kill me. So we try 5 or 6, some are better and some are worse, but there’s one that’s far better than the rest. I say, “Well, this one is almost worth drinking,” and they all respond with something along the lines of “Yeah, this one is really good.” That’s when I came to the conclusion that my perception of good and bad were on point for beer, it’s just that my standard for what I was going to enjoy was higher. They can keep their beers, I’ll stick to tastier beverages, alcoholic or otherwise.
Millennial here.
I read zoomers are less likely to use peer pressure to get others to drink. It’s also the reason why so many non-alcoholic beers are out in the market now. Really cool.
People don’t drink because it tastes good. People drink it because they like getting high and alcohol is one of the few legal drugs you can do. People who drink it because it’s the cool thing to do are being idiots.
If alcohol isn’t your thing you should probably get out there and try other drugs. The good thing about drugs is how many different kinds there are. There really is a substance for almost everyone if you look hard enough. Now if only stuff was legalized and people didn’t abuse it to the nth degree and get themselves in trouble.
Edit: also forgot to mention that brewing is probably the easiest and cheapest way to make a psychoactive substance known to man, and is an entire hobby people (such as myself) have. While lots of homebrewers spend money on fancy equipment and ingredients you don’t need to spend much at all to make alcohol that will get you drunk it can literally be done using a used plastic bottle and a fucking balloon. You can make pretty drinkable stuff with even fairly basic equipment like a hydrometer, couple of plastic or glass fermenters, yeast + nutrients ordered online, and supermarket ingredients.
Damn, they are getting younger and younger. Just recently a 13 year old drilled into a patient during brain surgery in Austria /s
Oh, wow. I can’t imagine having knife skills that precise. I’ve looked into this; what you actually need to do to prepare the fish isn’t actually difficult- there are only two organs that need to be removed without puncturing them.
But you still need a steady hand and incredible precision to remove those parts 100% consistently, frankly slicing the fish into ‘paper thin’ sheets would be 10x more difficult- just, if you fuck up a paper thin cut then it’s still fine and edible. Managing to pull off that sort of presentation technique is a really good indicator that this girl is the real deal- if she can make those paper thin slices, she can remove the poisons in her sleep.
I would love to try real sushi one day, but alas. I live in the UK. Best I can do is homemade with stuff from the supermarket.
I’m never going to try this.
Has anyone tried this? I can’t imagine the taste is much better than sushi grade yellow tail.
I’ve heard it’s not the taste. It’s a combination of thrill seeking and also even the meat has a bit of ttx apparently and microdosing gives a little tingle or buzz of sorts that is desirable.
Yes, I’ve heard the same. It’s a flavourless, hazardous form of conspicuous consumption. It’s one of those things where if someone dies from it, it’s really hard to feel sad for them.
I dunno. If prepared by a properly trained chef illness or death from fugu is very very rare. It’s not super high on the risk taking behavior scale. As someone that has a high risk ‘appetite’ I find myself drawn to things like new drugs or the challenge of exceptionally spicy foods I know I won’t find conventionallly pleasurable. I get that most would call these behaviors simply stupid, but I guess I can empathesize a little for others that have a loud Id in their psyche.
I’ve had it. I didn’t go out of my way for it–it was served to me as something special.
It doesn’t taste like much. It’s not bad by any means, but not very flavorful.
I always wonder how many times did we try this until we found the edible bit
