[none]

[Tim Wyatt]

Hi Everybody

I wonder if some of you experts on ancient recipes can help me with this
enquiry since many of you seem to have access to old cookery books. I hope
the topic is of interest to other subscribers to this list. First, by way of
background:

PSP stands for paralytic shellfish poisoning, and is a risk associated with 
eating some kinds of seafood in many parts of the world, especially mussels,
but also clams and other shellfish. The mussels feed on plankton and other
matter suspended in the water, and some species of phytoplankton contain
toxins which have little effect on the mussels but are highly dangerous to
vertebrates including ourselves. These toxins cause death by respiratory
paralysis within a few hours of eating contaminated shellfish, and cannot be
destroyed by cooking.
If you survive for 24 hours you are reasonably safe. Worldwide there are
some thousands of cases each year, and the death rate is around 10%. I'm not
trying to put people off eating mussels, most countries where there is a
risk of PSP have effective monitoring programmes, and harvesting is stopped,
or at least notices are posted, whenever the shellfish contain toxins. Mild
poisoning is said to be rather like being slightly drunk and therefore quite
pleasant!

Until 1968, very few cases of PSP were recorded in the medical literature of
the world, although the problem was well known in California and eastern and
western Canada. In Europe less than a dozen outbreaks are known prior to
1968. But in that year there was a major episode of PSP in
Newcastle-upon-Tyne in northeast England, and in 1972, PSP spread into the
western Gulf of Maine (USA) where it had not previously been known. These
rather sudden changes have been variously attributed to climate change,
pollution, or transport of the toxic beasts in
ballast water or shellfish shipments. The question is, how prevalent was PSP
in earlier centuries, and did shellfish recipes change in response to this
danger?
Do old cookery books warn about this problem?

By way of examples, a few years ago I was told there is no PSP in Sweden
because Swedes don't eat mussels. Is that true? Are there no mussel recipes
in Swedish cookery books? In the Philippines, green mussels are a recent
addition to the diet, and PSP seems to have increased in parallel with the
quantities produced by farms there. There are apparently no taboos
associated with eating green mussels. In Europe there is a tradition of not
eating shellfish unless there is an R in the month, and it is a fact that
the PSP risk season is mainly from May to August. It "works" for many
western European languages! But is that the real source of the R taboo?
Another thing, in clams much of the toxin is found in the coral, so that
they are safer to eat if that part is removed. Is removing the coral from
clams a matter of squeamishness or does it have practical value?

I guess I've said enough to provoke anyone interested in this little
(academic!) problem, and look forward to any responses you may have. Perhaps
I can add one more detail though. Puffer fish are an expensive dish in
Tokyo, and female puffer fish contain PSP toxins when they are ripe. They
release them to attract the males which I presume are immune to the toxic
effects. I have heard that the skill of the puffer fish chef lies in
blending the correct quantity of toxic liver with the meat, so that the
consumer gets a nice buzz but not total paralysis! Comments on that too?
Could we get drunk on June mussels? Much cheaper than whiskey!

Tim
************************************
Tim Wyatt
Instituto de Investigaciones Marinas
Eduardo Cabello 6, 36208 Vigo, Spain
tef: 34 86 231930, FAX: 34 86 292762
E-mail : twyatt at iim.csic.es
************************************

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