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Fugu farming
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THE best season for fugu dishes is during the winter. Therefore, there is a large difference in prices over the seasons. Japan has been successful in artificial cultivation of fugu. Fishers catch fugu in spring because it is the spawning season. Then, they cultivate these fish in a cage in the sea. They raise fish until the price goes up and start selling fugu in the fish market in late fall.
Fugu are sold while they are alive, therefore, transportation for fugu is exclusively arranged. The fugu's mouths are stitched shut because fugu tend to fight with each other in a small space.
Ten thousand tonnes of fugu are consumed each year in Japan. Farmed fugu, not feeding on plankton, is not lethal. Usually, fishermen catch fugu with a fishhook and a fish net. They start farming fugu in a cage that they build in the ocean in the spring, the egg-laying time. They feed fugu on fresh fish until they grow up. Fishermen start to sell them from late autumn to early winter. There is also full-scale farming such as the artificial insemination.
The small, spotted torafugu — the most dangerous and delicious variety are caught off the Korean coast in winter. It weighs as much as 1.8kg and costs US$100 or more at Tokyo fish market. Fishermen use this fish, which blows it self up when threatened, to make the lanterns that hang outside fugu restaurants. Only specially licensed cooks who know exactly how to cut up fugu are allowed to work there.
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