When dining in Nantong, I often hear people talk about the "Four Freshes of the Yangtze River." Leading the list is none other than the pufferfish, followed by the knife fish, shad, and catfish. Located at the confluence of river and sea, Nantong's selection of the "Four Freshes" more accurately represents the delicacies of the lower reaches of the Yangtze River, or what might be called the "Yangzi Four Freshes." These are species that travel between fresh and salt water, rarely found elsewhere, making them distinctly regional.
For example, the shad: "They live in the sea most of the time, but every year only return to the Yangtze River at the beginning of summer to spawn in fresh water. They rarely go further upstream than Nanjing. The season for eating shad is limited to May and June." (Zhu Wei). Nantong is fortunate—it lies on the necessary migration route of fish like the shad; living at the end of the river seems to bring more culinary luck than living at its source. Even residents of Wuhan, located midstream, cannot enjoy shad and must settle for Wuchang fish instead. Though Wuchang fish is quite famous, its flavor does not compare to that of the shad.
Among the "Four Freshes," the pufferfish was praised by Su Dongpo as early as the Song Dynasty: "Beyond the bamboo, peach blossoms bloom here and there; the ducks know first that the spring river waters are warm. The ground is covered with reeds, short and tender—just when the pufferfish wants to swim upstream." Thanks to this poem, the pufferfish became famous overnight. I even suspect that the popularity of Nanjing's salted duck owes something to Su Dongpo’s auspicious words ("the ducks know first"). Moreover, there is a saying among the common folk: "Risk death to eat pufferfish," which elevates the significance of the pufferfish to greater than life itself. This is something that Wuchang fish from the middle and upper reaches of the Yangtze cannot match. Like the shad, the pufferfish also lives along the coast, returning to the Yangtze after the Start of Spring. However, "those from the sea are highly toxic, those from the river less so," which is why people tend to eat the river variety more often. Even so, there have been many "fatalities" throughout history. This is not the fault of the pufferfish's toxicity, but rather our own gluttony. The pufferfish incites such greed that one might say, "Even if I die nine times, I would not regret it."