You've probably heard of fugu,
the deadly puffer-fish delicacy served across Japan.
The Japanese eat 10,000 tons of the fish every year,
but in high season, it could cost you $265 per kilo.
So what makes this dish so expensive?
This video contains footage of a fish being killed.
There are over 120 species of puffer fish.
22 different kinds are approved
by the Japanese government for use in restaurants,
but one is more prized and more poisonous than the others:
torafugu, or tiger puffer fish.
Wild torafugu is often found at high-end restaurants,
where it's served as a perfectly thinly sliced sashimi,
deep fried, and even used to make hot sake called hirazake.
Yamadaya has been serving puffer fish for over 100 years.
Their fugu is caught in southern Japan
and airlifted alive to their Tokyo restaurants.
Sourcing the fish can be tricky.
In Haedomari Market, the fugu is auctioned off
using a bag and hidden hand signals.
Each potential buyer puts their hand
in the bag and makes their bid secretly
before a successful bidder is chosen.
When selling such a dangerous food, safety is paramount.
In 2018, when a supermarket accidentally
sold five packets of the fish
that hadn't had the poisonous liver removed,
the town used its missile-alert system to warn residents.
The tetrodotoxin found in fugu is more toxic than cyanide,
and each year about 20 people are poisoned
from badly prepared fish.
It takes a lot of skill and training to prepare
the fish safely and to know which parts are poisonous.
The poisonous parts can vary by species,
and hybrid species are appearing now
that are even harder to tell apart.
One of the hardest things to distinguish between
can be the female fugu's ovaries,
which are extremely toxic,
and the male's testicles, which are a delicacy.
The Japanese government tightly control
who can prepare fugu, and chefs need
to take an extensive exam before they're
legally allowed to serve the fish.
This rigorous regulation means that,
while the fish can be lethal,
far more people die from eating oysters than fugu each year.
All of the skill and training that goes
into preparing this fish increases its price.
The fish is killed seconds before preparation,
and while the process looks gruesome,
as the muscles continue to spasm,
the fish is technically brain dead.
This method of killing the fish
means that the meat stays fresh for longer,
and at Yamadaya, the fugu is aged
for 24 hours before it's served.
So what does it actually taste like?
For how transparent it is, I didn't particularly
expect it to have such a chewy texture.
It really is much chewier than I expected,
but it's really a very subtle taste.
It's just a really fresh, sort of clean taste
and really, really nice.
Narrator: There's another reason tiger fugu
is getting more expensive:
overfishing.
Tiger puffer fish is near threatened,
and in 2005 the Japanese government
limited its fishing quotas and seasons.
And another popular edible species across Japan,
the Chinese puffer fish, has declined in population
by 99.9% over the last 45 years.
Farmed versions of these fish are much cheaper
and many more affordable chain fugu restaurants
are starting to appear,
but the farmed version is difficult to raise,
and Japanese consumers say
it just doesn't taste as good.
Wild fugu's high price guarantees
that it's safely prepared by an expert chef,
and when you're dealing with a potentially deadly fish,
that price is reassuringly expensive.