By Meagan Day

Police raided a members-only restaurant in Osaka this week for illegally serving tiger blowfish liver. The prohibition on the organ is unsurprising: it contains a substance over a thousand times more deadly than cyanide, and experts in its preparation sometimes fail to get that poison out, resulting in multiple deaths every year.

So what’s so great about blowfish liver that people are willing to risk their lives for a taste? It has more to do with Japan’s historically rigid social hierarchy than the gastronomic ecstasies of fish organs.

The blowfish is called fugu in Japan. Other parts of the fugu are eaten with some regularity, and aren’t dangerous, even though they may contain trace amounts of the toxin. “The flesh is not very tasty,” said Eric Rath, a specialist in Japanese cultural and culinary history. “But the poison that’s in the flesh is a mild intoxicant. If you eat it, it makes your tongue feel tingly. It’s like Pop Rocks.”

Japanese chef Shigekazu Suzuki cuts and trims fugu to remove the toxic internal organs at his restaurant in Tokyo. ©Yoshikazu Tsuno/Getty

When people are hospitalized with fugu poisoning, it’s often revealed that they requested the liver specifically — such as the five men who were hospitalized in 2012 after pleading with a restaurateur to break the rules on their behalf. Chefs who want to serve fugu have to take a special preparation course and receive a license, and are barred from serving internal organs.

As for why people order the toxic liver, Rath attributes it to a number of factors. The first is that the poison is vaguely narcotic — according to some, it induces a slight euphoria. The second, more culturally contingent reason has to with class status and cultural cachet. Eating fugu liver is an exotic experience that conveys prestige, sophistication and exclusivity.

Rath noted that in Japan there are many private restaurants like the one raided this week. Because you have to be a member or know one to be served, these establishments are places people visit to impress their friends and clients.

Bandō Mitsugorō VIII

Once there, ordering something illegal — and therefore rare and expensive — is an additional way to show off. And the fact that fugu liver is potentially poisonous introduces an element of risk and bravery to the scenario. In 1975, for instance, a famous Kabuki theater actor named Bandō Mitsugorō VIII died after consuming four portions of fugu liver and bragging to his friends that he would survive the poison.

The Japanese have a long history of advertising their wealth and status through culinary rarities. For centuries, the practice of purchasing the first fish or vegetable of the season was a common way of accruing prestige. “If you could be the first person to eat the first sea bream that year,” said Rath. “It was believed that the fish would add 75 days to your lifetime.”

Because of the high demand, the first sea bream of the season would cost up to four times as much money as the same fish would a few weeks later. “In a society where social mobility was extremely constrained,” Rath explained, “a peasant would always be a peasant and a merchant would always be a merchant. If you had a little extra money, this was one way to demonstrate your prestige when you weren’t going to be able to move up any other way.”

The practice, called hashiri mono, was outlawed by the feudal governments, Rath said. But the prohibition made it even more desirable.

Hashiri mono faded with the arrival of modern sensibilities. But traces of the delicacy mentality — the notion that pricey and forbidden food connotes status — still linger in some pockets of Japanese culture.

Nowadays, a large portion of the fugu served to the public comes from fish farms, where it isn’t exposed to the natural bacteria that produce the toxins in its organs. Meanwhile, the wild fugu population is dwindling due to overfishing. It appears that fugu-related deaths are poised to taper off. The question now is whether the Japanese will still think of blowfish organs as delicacies once they’ve lost their power to kill.