Puffer fish swell under attack. Photos: CFP

By Liang Chen

Puffer fish are the second-most poisonous vertebrate in the world, the first being a golden poison frog.

A one-kilo puffer can kill more than a dozen elephants.

A human being who eats puffer poison can die within 10 minutes.

No medicine has been found to detoxify the poison.

Despite or perhaps because of its deadly character, the fish is still a popular delicacy in both China and Japan.

Throughout history, it's been a tradition for people residing in the downstream Yangtze River to dine on it.

The Ming Dynasty (1368-1644) pharmacologist Li Shizhen, an influential figure in traditional Chinese medicine and author of The Great Compendium of Herbs, studied dining habits in the middle and lower reaches of the river.

He found each and every family in the town of Jiangyin ate the deadly fish and so he knocked on all their doors seeking the secrets of safe puffer cooking.

Finally, he wrote it all down in his book: "(Jiangyin) people prefer to abandon their lives just to eat the puffer."

In Jiangyin, before cooking, the god of the kitchen was asked to intervene and prevent nastiness.

The best time for puffer was their breeding season between March and May, Li explained.

As the old Jiangyin sayings go:

"No food is tasty after eating the puffer."

"The puffer never poisons Jiangyin people."

It's also said that it was a fine haul of puffers that helped the Jiangyin people survive the Great Chinese Famine of 1959-61.

Today, Jiangyin people consume up to 500 tons of puffers a year worth 400 million yuan ($60 million) in total.

The Jiangyin Puffer Fish Ecological Park in the village of Shengang is one of the best places to enjoy the fish. The park owns plastic tents that stretch for 20,000 square meters and their annual output can surpass more than 50,000 kilos.

"It's profitable to farm puffers," Zheng Jinliang, owner and the first to breed puffers, told the Shanghai Morning Post. "People from Shanghai and other places come to eat them, and the price is higher than normal fish."

Due to water pollution and over-fishing, wild puffer fish in this area became extinct decades ago. During 1999, he bought 11 puffers and paid 9,000 yuan a kilo for each. A pair of puffers cost him 65,000 yuan in 2002.

Zheng's fishery has now expanded into one of the biggest suppliers of puffer fish in China. He has also developed a mature industrial chain: from breeding, processing to cuisine.

"We receive nearly 10 tables of guests every day, mostly locals. But more people from other places will come in April to eat the puffers, the freshest time," said Chen Fang, an employee of Zheng.

She suggested the reporter book ahead.

Not far from Jiangyin is Yangzhong, another city that draws thousands of visitors from China and abroad.

Yangzhong, a county-level city under the prefecture of Zhenjiang, Jiangsu Province, trades 1,000 tons of puffer a year.

"It's the hot season for puffers," said He Baicai, director of Yangzhong Cuisine Association. "More than 40 percent of customers come from Shanghai."

People ate 1,000 tons of puffer at the Third Puffer Fish Festival in late March 2009, increasing 25 percent from 2008, according to local statistics.

Almost all restaurants in Yangzhong serve puffer.

"From the first light of day, Yangzhong people begin to eat the swellfish," Yang said.

The puffer fish has also been eaten in Japan for hundreds of years, where it has long been praised for its delicious but deadly combination. During the Meiji period (1868-1912), the sale of puffer fish was prohibited in some districts.

Workers toss puffer fish about in Hai'an, a county-level city administered by Nantong in Jiangsu Province. Photos: CFP

Japanese fetish

The puffer fish is also one of the most expensive foods in Japan. Cut up and served in a restaurant, it can cost $200. Despite the high price, the fish is increasingly popular.

Japanese today culture the fish in aquafarms to meet rising curiosity. Restaurant owners sometimes use the inflated fish as a lantern to hang outside their restaurants.

If bravery is necessary for eating the delicacy, then the cook takes on a grave responsibility.

With special responsibilities come special skills.

"I get paid 5,000 yuan a month and 40 yuan a kilo as my bonus," said Song Yuanyuan, a 40-something cook in Jiangyin.

The high risks and high salary make some of the best chefs unwilling to pass on their pricey skills.

"The master has to teach the apprentices well," Song said. "Otherwise he himself will be punished if the student accidentally poisons some guests."

Cooks are required to take a first taste before serving. If the taster's still OK 10 minutes later, the dish can be brought to the table.

The best chefs know exactly how to cook the pièce de résistance: the delicious, deadly liver.

"The key to detoxifying the liver is bloodletting before cooking," Yang Zhenhua, chief of Jiangyin Safe Puffer-Cooking Research Group, told the Travel Around China show on China Central Television (CCTV) Channel 10.

Yang has been cooking puffers for more than 40 years.

About 10 years ago, Yang led this group in establishing scientific and rigorous cook-ing methods for every cook to follow. Only by following strict procedures can the food be rendered safe to eat.

To qualify for a license, cooks willing to serve puffer fish must attend a training class and pass both theoretical and practical exams.

"When we first conducted the assessment, only five cooks in Jiangyin were qualified, and restaurants with licenses could profit a lot from the skill," Yang said.

At that time, it cost 10,000 yuan for a table of puffers.

Today, 25 restaurants are qualified to serve puffers in Jiangyin and at least 5,000 cooks can cook puffers in Yangzhong.

No one in Jiangyin has died of puffer poisoning since Yang's standardization work began.

If a diner is poisoned, the cook bears all the responsibility.

This woman surnamed Zhu will survive, but her 75-year-old friend surnamed Cai died despite emergency treatment. The two ate puffer fish in Xiamen, a coastal city of Fujian Province in May 2007. Photos: CFP

Forbidden flesh

The nation's legislative departments have forbidden people from eating puffer since the 1990s.

Health supervision departments issue annual safety warnings, but the public remains hungry for dicing with death.

Then-apprentice cook Liu Shujie fell to the floor after testing a piece of liver cooked by his master years ago.

"My feet and hands went numb and it felt like I was flying," Liu Shujie told CCTV. His teacher had forgotten to detoxify.

Induced vomiting and an enema saved Liu.

A 54-year-old man in Hui'an county, Fujian Province, died after eating puffer he cooked for his family, according to Law Today (Jinri Shuofa). The CCTV show did not name the man who could not be resuscitated by emergency personnel, though his wife and daughter eventually recovered.

The father had prepared it wrong, reports alleged. Usually the puffer should be cut open by its belly, to prevent the poison from polluting the flesh. Then the internal organs should be taken out. Finally, the fish should hang upside down to drain the blood.

The fish must also be braised for at least 40 minutes.

"The cook has to concentrate while cooking," Yang said, "keeping in mind that a man's life matters a lot."

Although the puffer used to be on every family's table, it's quite a luxury to treat your honored guests with a puffer now, especially at feasts.

The average price of puffer is 100 to 200 yuan a kilo in restaurants, 10 more times expensive than a carp.

Wild puffers face extinction without concerted action.

"Since the day I began breeding puffers, I knew I would let them return back to nature one day," Zheng Jinliang told CCTV.

Zheng has released millions of baby puffers into the Yangtze for several consecutive years since 2002.

Zheng said he made the decision after realizing the puffers he had bred weren't poisonous.

When he had touched wild puffers many years ago, Zheng recalled his hands went numb. The bred fish had no such effect, he noted.

Zheng's homebred puffers weren't poisonous, according to test results by the Epidemic Prevention Station of Jiangsu Province.

"The toxin is not inherited or innate," Zheng said.

The baby puffer is born non-poisonous and their toxins accumulate by dining on poisonous seaweed.

Zheng's puffers never ate the seaweed.

For some, wild puffers taste better and are better for the body.

"That's a myth," said Spike Millington, chief technology advisor of the EU-China biodiversity program. "No scientific results show that wild creatures can build your bodies stronger. On the contrary, wild ones are riskier and may threaten a human's life."

A mouthwatering puffer platter ready for execution in Jinan, capital city of Shandong Province. Photos: CFP

Fast facts: Puffer fish

Puffer fish is a small, bony river fish capable of expanding its body by inhaling water or air.

Puffer poisoning causes deadening of the tongue and lips, dizziness and vomiting, followed by numbness and prickling over the body, rapid heart rate, decreased blood pressure and muscle paralysis.

Death results from suffocation as diaphragm muscles are paralyzed.