Aye lass, I know. I just used the more common term, since many here would recognize 'pufferfish' or 'blowfish' better than the japanese term fugu for the prepared fish, or Tetraodontiformes for the order of fish they come from. Apparently its nearly tasteless, served in really, really thin little slivers. The organs of the fish are also a delicacy there, which are illegally served by some, such as liver and ovaries in portions, these, like the skin and other organs, blood etc, having much more TTX in them than the muscle tissue which is the part served correctly, if you can serve a puffer fish correctly.
Interesting factoid-they, as with blue-ringed octopi and other macro-organisms which harbor tetradotoxin, but they rely on bacteria living within them, such as within the salivary glands of the Hapalochlaena spp. blue-ringed octopi (have you ever seen a blue ringed octopus Ren, a living one? I'd love to. Although I'd not fancy the experience I got when diving in turkey from one of those, where I was scuba-diving so warm a wetsuit was not really needed, one was worn mostly to keep out jellyfish stings from tentacle fragments (they can still sting when the jellyfish is dead, and broken off bits of tentacle can still sting too for a long time, until the nematocysts rot down or discharge from contact with something suitable [nematocysts are the venom delivery of Coelenterata, such as jellyfish, comb jellies, hydras and sea anemones that consist of a coiled barbed micro-sized whiplash that is forcibly everted from a sac of venom by changes in hydrostatic pressure, amongst other trigger factors and are unique to this order of animals. Also their nervous system, of the animals themselves, especially comb-jellies are incredibly different to those of any other known animal, having diffuse neural nets, and in comb jellies, although some are present, even the neurotransmitters used, aside from a few such as serotonin and histamine are vastly, vastly different, so much so we barely understand them now in terms of how they do what they do, and sometimes even afaik what they do. Nervous systems in comb jellys are almost alien in the difference with any other living known creature, so far removed are they from what we understand in any other animal. Weird wee buggers for sure.)
Apparently in japan, they are breeding TTX-free takifugu, (not sure of the translation, although not to be confused with 'take' which means 'mushroom' as in shiitake, enokitake, ibo-tengutake (the latter is fly agaric, Amanita muscaria, a mushroom that raw, is toxic and is usually regarded outright as toxic, potentially dangerous by mushroom guidebooks, but when properly cooked in the right manner twice, before cooking and serving they can be leached free of poison, and that with a different process, I use to create an ibo-tengutake based spice blend that I LOVE adding to curries, stews, meaty soups and the like, and especially, for rubbing into a steak or two and then frying, based on the cured A.muscaria mushroom, which grows here too commonly, the famed white mushroom with a red-skinned cap surface and golden orange (usually, there are other less common color morphs although I avoid these for ease of identification, and they are rare in any case, so I'd leave those anyway, the classic red cap surface, orange just a few mm underneath the surface and with white spores, warts and ring, gills and stem and most of the cap tissue too, the colored parts being the richest in ibotenic acid, precursor to the psychoactive muscimol when cured as I do, although I use non-psychoactive, although perhaps slightly enlivening and stimulating if a big communal meal with lots of spice were eaten, maybe, just maybe, amount of fly Amanita (a family to be careful with, for the genus Amanita contains some of the deadliest poisons in the mushroom world, and is the family, those within the subsection Phallodeae, containing deadly and cruel, slow acting liver destroying poisons called amatoxins, potent inhibitors of RNA polymerase type II, an enzyme vital for synthesis in cells of various mRNA and other RNA types, which translate DNA into protein output, as well as binding powerfully to actin, a cytoskeletal protein, essentially a component of the internal support architecture of cells) and after a delayed (characteristic of amatoxin poisoning by these deadly varieties of Amanita, Lepiota, Galerina, Conocybe and at least one Hypholoma, H.fasciculare, where it accompanies many other toxins, called fascicolols, or rather they do, for there are at least ten of these deadly cyclic octapeptides) as little as 5mg orally, one bite of one small mushroom is enough to kill an adult slowly and horribly. Nasty bastards, especially since Galerina spp. especially can look a LOT like the valuable Psilocybe cyanescens, one of the most potent psilocybin containing 'shrooms. Although fortunately their spore print is rusty brown whilst that of the valued Psilocybe, a species I like to hunt for in season, and so damn strong that just handling the wet mushrooms with bare hands can make one start tripping pretty well, when removing the wood-chip crud with tissue paper from the mushrooms, the spore print as with all Psilocybes is violaceous-black, quite, quite different and very obvious. So before use I spore print each and every individual mushroom, severing the stalk and keeping it above or to a specific side, uniformly in distribution of each cap, so the two can be matched and any that do not fit the desired spore color are discarded immediately, and if more than a few were found in a big harvest I'd reject the entire lot if I had to, so virulent are the bastards, which can grow in the same patch of wood debris, or even from the same wood-chip. I've seen that, I've even picked and identified a deadly Galerina autumnalis sprouting from the same wood as P.cyanescens, which both were rejected and consigned to a bleach filled toilet on principle then flushed. Since I'd no more either eat the Psilocybe growing so close to a Galerina, than I would lick a turd. Nor would I grow spawn from it since the entire spawn block could be compromised and thus poison potentially absorbed by the growing Psilocybin mushrooms.
Cyans are to be sought for certainly, but one must be careful that way. The chemical Meixner test for amatoxins is of no use in distinguishing them from Psilocybin mushrooms, as the test relies on a reaction between the tryptophan aminoacid residue of the amatoxin polypeptide core, and psilocybin is a tryptamine, a drug formed from tryptophan that has been decarboxylated (a carboxylic acid, inc. aminoacids losing CO2) and high-lignin paper such as ink-free parts of newsprint and hydrochloric acid, which is applied to a sample dropped onto a piece of mushroom to be tested mashed in to such paper (lab filter paper btw is no good, its low in lignin), and then a drop of strong hydrochloric acid applied, the positive result (or false negative due to tryptamines or tryptophan itself, or 5-hydroxytryptophan too presumably, all often found in these psychedelic mushrooms, and in and of itself, innofensive and not a poison) appearing usually within a half hour a a lilac or blueish halo round the mushroom squashed tissue/juice) (note, psilocybin mushrooms often of their own accord, BRUISE blue, but they do this without chemical help from the mycologist's arsenal of reagent tests) Amanitas do not. And they have, with very rare exceptions such as Amanita chlorinosma, which has green spores and greenish gills when the spores ripen, along with a distinctly chlorine gas/hypochlorite-like odor to the whole fungus, white spores, and most commonly, white gills although there are exceptions)
There are good eating species to be found within the genus Amanita, but telling them for what they are needs a good eye and a good reservoir of knowledge and experience along with great care, given the consequences are dire indeed in amatoxin poisoning. Up to fifty-fifty with agressive treatment and the best supportive care, to 90% fatality if untreated. And a nasty way to go too, unless you enjoy shitting your liver out as a bloody faecal milkshake after violent gastroenteritis after 8-15 hours or so usually, then up to a week and a half or so of living hell while you are being made ready for the post-death hell should there be one and you be headed there, along with multiple organ failure, and swelling of the brain, blood electrolytes going again, straight to hell. Kidney failure sometimes as a bonus, as your liver shrivels and dies slowly, along with you. Although a liver transplant and full blood exchange, plus dialysis and plasmapheresis can save lives, and treatment with injectable silymarin, a substance originally isolated from milk-thistle, although of low oral bioavailability, and possibly also thioctic acid as another hepatoprotectant too can help save lives from these amongst the most horrible of fungal little fucking shitbags.
So, your life can, with best medical care, and knowing that after the first couple of days of violent gastroenteritis, there is often a delay of a day or two where the victim feels better, before fulminant liver failure ensues and the patient, after discharge from hospital, apparently well again has happened if they don't know what they are doing or what they are dealing with, be improved to about a 1 in 2 chance of survival.
And some of the edibles in the genus need specific cooking or processing (there is no such cooking or preparation which renders amatoxin-packing fungi non-deadly, and they cause over 90% of fungal fatal poisonings annually worldwide) definitely a group to be well wary of and to eat none of unless you REALLY know what you are doing.
I do, mind you, I've been at it (selftaught) since age 4 at least, as soon as I taught myself to read, with mushroom textbooks lol, out I was hunting, and I've been at it ever since. Definitely like my wild mushrooms, and shop-bought ones of some types, shiitake specifically. Although their oyster mushrooms, at least Pleurotus ostreatus, I don't rate, as being too watery and flabby, much prefer the wild ones, picked fresh from a tree trunk before IDing for sure, cooking and eating. Much tastier. And I'll work up an appetite for breakfast if I'm out before dawn with a torch, hunting for some. And that Fly Amanita (A.muscaria var muscaria) based spice blend I use for red meat, that is my own recipe (fly agaric powder from the caps, heat-dried very slowly over a low heat as base, a few cubebs, some black pepper, chilli pepper, toasted savina habanero type chili, although these are nuclear-grade hot, so be careful and don't touch them without gloves, make damn sure to thoroughly wash knives, pans etc before using for anything else, some pink peppercorn, leaves if I can find some of Polygonum hydropiper, a bistort relative plant, peppery boletus-Chalciporus piperatus, that grows with Amanita muscaria under silver birch trees as a parasite on the Amanita mycelium, szechuan pepper, and a few other spices, sometimes a pinch of ginger powder if I want a little sweetening fire...I never make a chili con carne without it, or do a steak. Of course it means hunting for the two mushrooms, which aside from the Amanita, cannot be bought, the Amanita can sometimes through online head shops selling psychoactive plants and fungi etc. but not peppery bolete. So it means going out and digging up a supply for oneself, and curing the Amanitas at home.
Although I've never, ever had a problem with it. Its not hard, just needs doing. The results are quite worth the hunt and the night and day spent curing the fly agaric caps (I only don't use the stems because I don't consider them as good, not because they are dangerous, just, to me, worthless compared to the caps, the best bit, and easiest to prepare after the water laden gills are scraped away with a spoon, then the mushrooms turned upside down, and heated in an oven over the lowest possible flame on foil lined baking trays, turning them once in a while to ensure an even cure and proper drying, since I pick kilos yearly, for use both as herbal medicine and as a spice for my kitchen.)
In fact, come to think of it, I'll be using it maybe tomorrow or the next day, if I decide to eat the two big thick juicy beef steaks I bought, nice fresh prime rump made a couple of inches thick, to give me something to chew on and fill a hole ever hungry for MEAAAAATTTTT (aren't little babies such lovely things.....
so tender and sweet when given a light toasting and then pan fried in slices. Although don't do those in the microwave, the heads explode :LOL1) and for meaaaaaat that comes in the form of deceased bovine liberally sprinkled with my mushroom-version of honeyed MSG plus a mixture of nuclear fireball peppers of various kinds, and some more exotic relatives of pepper like cubeb, that numb the mouth, as well as szechuan pepper that does too, like a local anaesthetic and allows for the chef to put in far hotter ingredients and more of them than are normally tolerable or desirable and still make for a slab of dead cow to drool at the mere thought, nevermind the smell of (albeit when cooking its best to stay out of the kitchen, because the fumes that are released from the peppers being pan-fried as the spice paste with a little oil, sprinkled all over and into deep cross-cut slashes are, to say the least, something you want the windows and door wide open for and extractor fan on. Ideally, I'll wear an old gas mask filter canister on my older mask for organics only, that got retired after they ceased making new filters for that model at the factory end, because the fumes pack a vicious bite to them if breathed in or they get to the eyes or nose or lips. Its like a flamethrower in a pan, only that turns out really delish once finished A veritable nuke in a pan those fumes are and will really knock you sideways if you happen not to expect it and walk into my kitchen when I'm doing steak
