I have absolutely no proof and no cite for this, but the only way I can imagine the way make fugu survivable is thus:
Somebody does something really bad to tick off the local ruler. The local ruler condemns him to death, but in one of those twisted things that only happen with autocratic rulers, allows the guilty party to choose his own manner of death. The condemned decides to die by eating fugu, but being a picky and fastidious eater, insists on eating only certain parts of it, and even then insisting that they be thoroughly cooked.
He eats and lives. And enjoys it so much he wants more.
People go “hmm…”
It then evolves to a trial-by-ordeal situation, where condemned folks are used as guinea pigs for fugu preparation until the whole system for producing it becomes reliable. Then, somehow, it catches on as a death-defying fad, sort of the gastronomical equivalent of bungee-jumping.
But maybe it’s just my imagination running wild on me…
I think it’s a lot simpler. We live in easy times. Probably very few people on this board have ever felt truly hungry. However, very few people have now, and even fewer had in the past the option to choose what they ate.
When faced with famine, if something is not edible, you make it edible. If you’re starving and there are olive trees all around you, it’s not a stretch to imagine that you’d be thinking: “there’s got to be a way I can eat those things.”
After WWII, a lot more people did die from salvaging fugu parts - and yet probably many of them were aware of the danger. The choice when you’re living through a famine is: take a chance or starve to death. And there were plenty of famines in Japanese history.
I think this is correct. Our frame of reference is distorted. For example, I find it implausible that eating the first oyster involved bravery - it was almost certainly hunger that did the trick. If you are seriously hungry, the notion that you’d balk at eating an oyster because of its appearance is laughable.
I don’t entirely blame you, though, as even the CDC got it wrong. Note that their cite dates back to 1973.
Since all my cites above are in Japanese, you might want something in English. The BBC reports:
Note that “cases of poisoning” != death. Even they, though, slightly inflated their numbers. Between 1993 and 2002, 2001 had the most cases of poisoning, 52 for 3 deaths, and 1994 the fewest, 23 (one death).
At one point in time, the Chinese were very interested in finding a way to make oneself immortal and experimented with all kinds of crazy things, including eating things one wouldn’t normally eat.
And besides, just because something’s edible and not poisonous doesn’t mean that folks are going to realize it.
We have talked about FUGU fish, but what about truly nasty foods like tripe, octopus, and jellyfish?
The Chinese (having the world’s oldest culture) probably have tried just about every edible substance…and I can assure you, camphorwood-smoked duck is just awful!
I will never cease to be amazed at what some people find nasty. Macdonald’s is nasty. Tv dinners are nasty. Sunny D is nasty. Processed “cheese” is nasty. Octopus, when fresh, is damn tasty. And it’s almost all food, very little waste.
One of my cousins volunteered for humanitarian work in Bolivia. He lived in a tiny village where people didn’t even understand Spanish. They ate potatoes three times a day. Every day; that’s pretty much the only thing that could grow there. Of course they had all sorts of different potatoes and about 300 different ways of cooking them. Which goes back to my point that people eat whatever they can and they will always find inventive ways to make the inedible edible and the nasty palatable.
Remember, you and I have the incredible luxury of being able to choose what we eat. We are priviledged beyond belief.