“今浙人食河豚，始于上元前，常州江阴最先得。方出时，一尾至直千钱，然不多得，非富人大家预以金瞰渔人，未易致。二月后日益多，一尾才百钱耳。” ～ 叶梦得《石林诗话》
"The appetite for globefish among Zhejiang people starts at the dawn of the Lantern Festival. It's always Jiangyin of Changzhou that gets the first catch. The premium grade are usually consumed by the riches and nobles as prime globefish is sold at a thousand coins. However, the price drops to merely a hundred coins a piece when captures increase significantly after February." ~ Shelin Sihua by Ye Mengde, Song Dynasty
I'll be blunt: having tried both globefish in China (braised) and fugu in Japan (sashimi), I really don't see what's the buzz. Maybe it's a bad day for the chef or maybe it's because I'm too thick to understand a myth that has been there since literally the Song Dynasty. But anyway, I think the article is very accurate when it says 95% of the globefish consumed these days are bred so eating it ain't no a risky business as it used to be. [via Chinadaily. Photo courtesy of Chinadaily]
