Saturday, October 13, 2007 Russian roulette fish By Ober Khok
TRAVEL expands the mind, enlightens the soul and widens the girth.
You haven’t traveled until you have eaten your way (and gained weight) through the back streets of a country to explore exotic cuisine.
The flavor of a town is defined by its gastronomic items, which have been marinated in folk beliefs, and simmered in long-standing testimonials of the benefit these exotic foods offer to the diner.
There are dishes you can consider high-risk, stemming from natural elements that may be left behind even after cooking. Dog meat may still host rabies virus, and some kinds of fish may still contain neurotoxins even after they have been cleaned.
You wonder why the persistence in eating dangerous flesh.
Answer: Partaking of verboten flesh means flirtation with Death, a game of Russion roulette; and there is this lustful thrill that if you’re lucky, you live to tell the tale.
Enter buriring (puffer fish, blow or globe fish), which goes to school alongside sapsap (ponyfish) and other fishes near the bottom of the sea, the reason they’re caught with the edible finned ones.
Maybe fishermen started eating buriring for a lark. Discovering its chicken-like flavor, they clamored for more in spite of the fact it sometimes caused illness or death.
During its breeding season, from December to June, buriring is at its deadliest. Even when properly cleaned, that is, removing the deadly parts, like the ovaries, skin, skeleton, liver and intestines, some of the nerve toxins remain to produce a mild tingling glow, a flush and drug rush. The tetrodotoxin is 160,000 times more potent than cocaine.
Filipinos are not alone in this game of Russian roulette with a fish. Japan, Thailand and Korea love this infamous fish, too.
Japan even calls the buriring as fugu, which translates as “river pig,” maybe in reference to its delectable flavor. “I want to eat fugu, but I don’t want to die,” is a popular Japanese expression.
The risk of death is real. The US Food and Drug Administration warns “puffer fish can produce rapid and violent death.” Like all warnings, it only whets the appetite.
After gingerly placing buriring flesh in my tongue, for a lark, a numb sensation spread in my mouth akin to having dental anesthesia.
Ximo, my frustrated doctor friend, said that in higher doses buriring toxin becomes a medical condition. Numbness is a symptom of systemic paralysis and ensuing respiratory failure.
So why does man keep eating buriring?
Maybe man wants to taunt Death while trying to find out if testes cocktail (buriring testes steeped in hot sake) really has greater aphrodisiac kick than Charlize Theron.
Maybe it’s a form of gambling, with your life as the ante against something so tiny and cloaked with mystery.
It’s taking your life to the edge of the grave, and if the venom proves weak, you can step back to crow about how you defeated Death.
This victory makes man feel powerful, thus adding to the allure of this fish. No matter how many lives it harvests, there will always be gamblers and thrill-seekers who will take the dare to play Russian roulette with buriring.
