SAN LUIS RIO COLORADO CHINESE RESTAURANT MENU LISTS PROTECTED TOTOABA

June 12, 2004, Barry Norman: An advertisement placed by the China House Restaurant in San Luis Rio Colorado, Sonora, advertising a soup made from the endangered totoaba fish: “Sopa de Buche de Totoaba.”

Notes on eating poisonous pufferfishes:

I love to fish, mostly surf. About a half dozen years ago, when I was still living in North Carolina, I was in Baja on vacation. I camped and fished at Laguna Manuela and caught a couple puffers. I asked some passing Mexicans if they were good to eat and they said “oh yeah.” So, I gutted them and was going to roast them in aluminum foil, skin and all. Then I seemed to vaguely recall something about them in The Baja Catch. I looked up puffers in the back of the book and after reading what was written, immediately buried them in the sand and opened a can of pork and beans for dinner.

There was an article in the Yuma paper about a Japanese university experimenting in raising nonpoisonous Fugu puffers. Apparently eating starfish, etc., is what concentrates toxins in them and controlling their feed produces puffers without poison.

I now recall that I did eat one in San Felipe over 20 years ago when I didn't know. I guess I was just lucky and didn't puncture anything when I gutted and filleted it.

(See "Mexico Fishing News" online for current fishing reports, photos, weather, and water temperatures from Rocky Point and other major Mexican sportfishing areas. Vacation travel articles, fishing maps and seasonal calendars, and fishing related information for Rocky Point may be found at Mexfish.com's main Rocky Point (Puerto Penasco) page.