Fugu is the Japanese pufferfish (chiefly Takifugu rubripes, the torafugu or "tiger puffer"), a lean, snow-white, faintly sweet fish famous less for its flavour than for its lethal potential: its liver, ovaries and skin carry tetrodotoxin, a poison with no antidote, so only licensed chefs may butcher it. Prized for a firm, almost crunchy translucent flesh, it is sliced paper-thin into the fanned sashimi called fugu-sashi and simmered in winter hot-pots.