The land overrun by weeds and water studded with reeds, it’s time for pufferfish to swim upstream. This is a line from a poem by Su Shi, a famous writer, calligrapher, painter and gourmet of the Northern Song Dynasty (960-1127). In 1085, Huichong, a painter and monk, invited Su to write a poem to accompany his painting River Scenes on a Spring Evening. Although there were no pufferfish in the artwork, Su’s imagination of them into the scene has left him associated the delicacy to this day.
The custom of eating pufferfish originated in China, where it’s been consumed for thousands of years, according to Duan Ran, founder of Puffer Family, a Beijing-based business operating in all sections of the pufferfish industrial chain.
