Dicing death: The fish more poisonous than cyanide

Kunio Miura always uses his special knives to prepare fugu - wooden-handled with blades tempered by a swordsmith to a keen edge. Before he starts work in his kitchen they are brought to him by an assistant, carefully stored in a special box, BBC News reports.

Miura-san, as he is respectfully known, has been cutting up blowfish for 60 years but still approaches the task with caution. A single mistake could mean death for a customer.

Fugu is an expensive delicacy in Japan and the restaurants that serve it are among the finest in the country. In Miura-san's establishment a meal starts at $120 (£76) a head, but people are willing to pay for the assurance of the fugu chef licence mounted on his wall, yellowed now with age. He is one of a select guild authorised by Tokyo's city government to serve the dish.

When he begins work the process is swift, and mercifully out of sight of the surviving fugu swimming in their tank by the restaurant door.

First he lays the despatched fish, rather square of body with stubby fins, on its stomach and cuts open the head to removes its brain and eyes.

They are carefully placed in a metal tray marked "non-edible". Then he removes the skin, greenish and mottled on the top and sides, white underneath, and starts cutting at the guts.

"This is the most poisonous part," he says pulling out the ovaries. But the liver and intestines are potentially lethal too. "People say it is 200 times more deadly than cyanide."

Read more http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-18065372