”It was a good summer vacation.”

Make no mistake, delicious as it may be, fugu (Japanese blowfish) can kill you. The liver is poisonous. The ovaries are poisonous, Heck, even the skin is poisonous. They all contain the paralyzing toxin tetrodotoxin, which renders the victim unable to breathe but terrifyingly awake as they suffocate and die.

So, obviously, you want to make sure anyone who’s preparing fugu for other people to eat knows exactly what they’re doing, and one person who does is Karin Tabira, a 10-year-old girl from Kumamoto Prefecture who’s now the youngest person in history to pass the fugu preparation certification test.

▼ Tabira arriving at the test center on the day of her examination

Despite the potential danger, fugu remains a delicacy in Japan, prized for its flavor and firm texture, enjoyed raw as sashimi, stewed in hot pot, and deep-fried as fritters. The certification system ensures that there’s virtually no danger in eating restaurant or supermarket fugu, and whenever you do hear about someone from eating fugu, it’s invariably someone who caught a blowfish while fishing, then foolishly thought “Eh, I can probably clean and cook this up myself” despite not having the proper training.

With proper fugu preparation being literally a matter of life and death, the certification test sets a high bar to clear, with less than 65 percent of applicants passing. This isn’t a theoretical exam, either, but a practical, hands-on one. During the test, each applicant is given a whole blowfish and the tools needed to remove the poisonous portions and prepare the rest for eating or cooking.

▼ Yes, that’s Tabira using a hammer as part of the proper fugu prep process.

Tabira, whose hobby is fishing, is currently in the fifth grade, but fugu prep isn’t something they teach as part of the standard curriculum in Japanese elementary schools. So after finishing her regular classes she’s been apprenticing at Fukunari, a local aquaculture and fish wholesaler that specializes in fugu (which is also called “fuku” in some parts of west Japan).

However, the young girl’s fugu dreams hit a bit of a roadblock in terms of testing sites. Though you can take the fugu preparation certification test in many different places in Japan, some of them, including Tabira’s hoe prefecture of Kumamoto, require applicants to be 18 or older. Tabira didn’t want to put her ambition on hold for eight years, though, so she instead took the exam this summer in Yamaguchi Prefecture, which has no minimum age requirement for the test (Yamaguchi also has a reputation for having the most delicious fugu in all of Japan).

Tabira said she felt confident in her performance as she finished the test, and that feeling was justified. When the results were announced in late August, she’d passed, making her the youngest person ever to pass the fugu preparation certification test.

On August 22, Tabira was invited to the Kumamoto Prefectural Capital Building, where she was personally congratulated by Governor Takashi Kimura and beloved bear mascot character Kumamon. Naturally, she brought along some fugu that she had prepared, which Kimura ate and decaled delicious.

“It was a good summer vacation” says Tabira of the very unique memory she made during her time off from school. Because of her age, she’s still too young to do actual restaurant work, but she says her goal when she grows up is to become a professional fugu chef, and she’s definitely got a big head start on her credentials.

Source: Mainichi Shimbun via Livedoor News via Otakomu, NHK News Web
Top image: Wikipedia/Lilyu
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