Novelty in Japan Ten-year-old allowed to prepare deadly pufferfish delicacy

Pufferfish is considered a delicacy in Japan - and may only be prepared with a license due to its potentially lethal poison. Now also by a fifth-grader who passed the exam to become a fugu cook at the first attempt.

In Japan, a ten-year-old girl has recently been allowed to prepare a pufferfish delicacy that can be fatal if prepared incorrectly: Fifth-grader Karin Tabira passed the fugu chef exam in the summer and thus officially acquired the license to gut the poisonous pufferfish and cut it into wafer-thin slices of sashimi.

One of the first test eaters was the governor of her home region of Kumamoto, Takashi Kimura. "I was happy when the governor said 'oishi'," Tabira reported at the tasting. "Oishi" means "tasty" or "delicious" in Japanese.

People die again and again

Made from puffer fish, fugu is a delicacy that is usually served raw in Japanese restaurants. However, special expertise is required when preparing it: the skin, intestines, ovaries and liver of puffer fish from the wild contain a deadly poison and must be removed with extreme care.

Japanese chefs therefore need special training and a license to process pufferfish. Nevertheless, people in Japan continue to die after eating incorrectly prepared fugu.

Passed at the first attempt

Tabira's interest in fugu training was sparked by the news that a sixth-grader from another region in Japan had passed the test. In February, she was then able to start her own training in a company in Kumamoto. However, she took the test in the Yamaguchi region, where there is no minimum age for candidates.

A total of 60 people passed the Fugu exam in Yamaguchi this summer, most of them trained chefs alongside Tabira. 33 candidates failed. "Even our adult employees can fail the test," said Yuki Hirao from Tabira's training company. "It's amazing that a ten-year-old can pass the test at the first attempt."