Good news, "foodies" - pufferfish is now available downtown. The famous delicacy is known as "fugu," which is Japanese for "why is my tongue swelling," and is one of the more famously fatal dishes you can eat. You might think it's an odd world in which trans-fats are banned, but fish that can kill you mackerel-dead is totally legal, and you would be correct. Fugu, however, is prepared by experts to ensure your meal does not end with paramedics standing around saying "damn, I've never seen that happen." Certified chefs, highly trained in the time-honored art of not killing the customer right away, prepare the fish with great skill. It supposedly tastes like clam and whitefish. Makes you wonder why people just don't order the clam and the whitefish and mush them together, but some people thrive on danger. Another order of fugu, waiter! And a fresh glass of raw chicken juice!

Here's the part I don't get. At some point it became apparent that everyone who ate pufferfish died from a condition they came to call "eating pufferfish." This led to a general rule: stay away from that stuff. Next step: someone had to say "surely there has to be a way we can eat pufferfish without dying." The natural response: "Try the grouper." Nay! How can I be satisfied with regular fish, when pufferfish may be a taste unlike any? It could be a subtle melange of trout and cod, or a zesty symphony of shrimp, scallops, and flounder. And so the call went out across the land: find a way to eat pufferfish without the whole notifying-the-next-of-kin part. This was either accomplished by offering a large reward, or being the king and making your royal chefs experiment until one of them figured it out. And imagine what that guy went through: having succeeded in not poisoning himself once, he had to do it again to make sure it wasn't a fluke.

Of course it wasn't a fluke, it was a pufferfish! Ha ha. Anyway, Wikipedia says the pufferfish is the second most poisonous thing in the world, "the first being a Golden Poison Frog." There is no antidote to its poison, they say. If that's so, how come the Golden Poison Frog exists at all? Shouldn't the first one have died on the spot? Says Wiki:

Somewhere right now, a chef is wondering what it would taste like in a light cream sauce.