A world-famous chef was stopped as he brought 40 piranhas through LAX.

Pedro_P

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A piranha caught in Peru, and chef Virgilio Martinez at his restaurant Central in the capital city of Lima.
▼  PSA: Customs officers do not like it when you try to bring a duffel bag full of 40 vacuum-sealed, frozen piranhas into Los Angeles.
Virgilio Martinez, chef-owner of Central restaurant in Peru, who was featured in the third season of Netflix’s “Chef’s Table,” learned this lesson the hard way.
The chef landed at LAX this past week to cook dinners at Somni and at Vespertine as part of the Los Angeles Times’ monthlong food festival Food Bowl. In his luggage when he landed were 40 piranhas.
“I was extremely obsessed about bringing piranhas because we serve piranhas in the Amazon at Central, so I said, ‘Guys, why not take a risk to bring piranhas to L.A.?’ ” Martinez said. “You probably have preconceived notions about piranhas because of movies, but for me, piranhas, we go fish them.”
When the chef was going through customs, officers opened his bag and “they went into a panic,” Martinez said.
“What’s inside?” asked one officer.
“Bones,” responded Martinez with a laugh. “Flesh.”
His attempt at humor landed him in a private interrogation room where he was questioned by additional officers.
“Why are you bringing piranhas?”
“I'm doing a special dinner with a friend who I really respect and I’m going to do a dish I really enjoy doing,” Martinez says he told them. And so it went for a total of five hours before Martinez was able to convince the officer that he was there to do something strange but, ultimately, benign.
“I told him that it was from my heart and showed him a few photos,” Martinez said. “I took my book and said, ‘Look, this is what I want to do with the piranhas.’ And he finally said, ‘Oh, wow, go ahead.’ ”
For Martinez, carrying that bag out of LAX was more than worth the hassle. Because of the airport ordeal, he wasn’t able to dine at Vespertine, but he was able to use the meat from the piranhas to make a salad while cooking at the restaurant the following evening. And at Somni, he dried the piranha skins and served them in the piranha heads.
“I bet most people here have never tried piranhas,” Martinez said. “I told the people at the Somni dinner that I spent five hours for you, so you better enjoy it.”

► This news was originally published here: Source

Rhett_Bassard

I understand that 'piranha' is code for 'mother-in-law'.

Pedro_P

Rhett Bassard 10-5-2019 12:43 AM
I understand that 'piranha' is code for 'mother-in-law'.

You are very generous... LOL
A piranha is a meek and harmless fish compared to a mother-in-law... Rather, I think a remora better illustrates the spirit of the mother-in-law.

Text: «My mother-in-law treats me like a god... She knows that I exist, but she can not see me»

warlikeprince

This kind of odd food orders always been harmful to wildlife. In many countries the animals in protective list and some rare ones are killed to pleasure of some rich ones. This should be banned outright...

Rhett_Bassard

warlikeprince 31-5-2019 10:39 PM
This kind of odd food orders always been harmful to wildlife. In many countries the animals in prote ...

Source, source, and source.
Like MILs, piranha are not rare, they're not protected. In some parts of the world, they're a nuisance.
For thousands of years, they've been a staple in the Peruvian Amazon:

Pedro_P

In fact, fish farming is more or less developed in some areas of the Amazon and also in the Andes, that prevents excessive depredation... The inhabitants and native tribes of the Amazon, hunt and consume the diverse Amazonian flora and fauna, using criteria of conservation and without overexploitation since time immemorial and practically they have a subsistence economy, they consume what nature offers them without depredating.
Where large-scale industrial fishing takes place, it is in the Pacific, and although the authorities try to maintain and regulate fishing quotas, there is a lot of illegal fishing that depredates the ocean, mainly Chinese flag factory boats.