Food poisoning

[Sakurahime]

Going to Japan can be very exciting - there's a completely different language, different animals, different shops, different food. And trying new food especially is really exciting, but cooking it can have hidden pitfalls if you don't know anything about the ingredients. This is a cooking fail, if you like, that happened to someone I know (who I won't embarrass online - some details have been changed!)
You might have heard of the dangers of eating fugu, or pufferfish, because of how poisonous it is when prepared incorrectly, but there are other, more common foods to be wary of in Japan. As someone from the UK, I don't have much experience with bamboo shoots. Sure, I've eaten them, but I'd never prepared them before. If I'd used them in cooking at all, I bought them in a can, ready to go. It was the same with my friend.
My friend decided to try a traditional Japanese recipe for bamboo shoots, and she got really excited about it. She followed the recipe carefully, and they looked delicious, so we sat down to eat them. Unfortunately, a while later we both got stomach pains. It turns out that bamboo shoots are poisonous if they aren't cooked for long enough, and my friend had "under-done" them. Luckily, it wasn't too bad and we felt fine by the evening, but it was still unpleasant! On the plus side, we'll never forget to properly cook bamboo shoots ever again...

Does anyone else have any tales to add of food poisoning in Japan? I'd be interested to know if anyone ever got food poisoning from a restaurant or food stall, because the staff always seem really careful and hygienic.

[Kitsune]

I didn't even know that we can eat bamboo shoots. Isn't that made of pure wood still? The only woodlike or bamboolike food that I've ever tried is the sugar cane. I mean, I don't really eat it outright but I just sip the wood so I can taste the sweet sugar from it. That's really delicious especially if you just pick them fresh. If ever I go camping and someone introduces us to eating bamboo shoots, I would remind them of this scenario that we might get poisoned from it. As for the Japanese Pupperfish, I think its poison is called tetrodotoxin which is really deadly. I still don't understand taking the risk of dying just to taste a dangerous food like this.