Fugu

Twenty minutes later, the chef has successfully prepared a whole fugu—or puffer fish—a Japanese delicacy whose capacity to maim and kill is dividing the country’s culinary world.

A sluggish swimmer, fugu has stunted fins and often flat-lying spikes instead of scales, and when confronted by predators it compensates for its lack of speed by swallowing enough water to swell up until its spikes stand on end, so it looks like an angry armored balloon.