LOS ANGELES—A famous South American chef says he was stopped as he brought 40 frozen piranhas in a duffel bag through Los Angeles International Airport.
Virgilio Martinez, chef-owner of Central restaurant in Peru, tells the Los Angeles Times on Wednesday, May 8, that he hoped to serve the predatory, sharp-toothed fish during an LA food festival.
Martinez was featured in the third season of the Netflix show “Chef’s Table.”
He says customs agents pulled him into an interrogation room last week when they found the cache of frozen, vacuum-sealed piranhas.
After five hours, the agents let Martinez through with the fish. He used them that night on a salad. The newspaper says the following night he dried the piranha skins and served them inside the piranha heads.
Piranhas are common in South American rivers.
Shredding a Cow in Seconds
Shoals of piranha are often said to be able to strip a carcass to the bone in seconds. According to National Geographic, this has some truth but doesn’t reflect typical circumstances.
“In a historic visit to Brazil, Theodore Roosevelt famously saw a group of piranhas shredding pieces of a cow carcass in seconds,” says the National Geographic website. “His dramatic account would color popular imagination for years, even though it was based on a manipulated spectacle in which fishermen blocked off a group of the fish and starved them beforehand.”
According to National Geographic, it is unknown how many species of piranhas exist, with estimates ranging from 30 to 60.”
Piranhas will eat each other if they run out of food.
“It’s true that local fishermen occasionally have scars from close encounters with them,” according to National Geographic.
However, there have been reports of attacks and fatalities in recent years.
A spate of piranha attacks left 50 people injured in Brazil in 2016, as drought conditions forced them from their natural habitat to waters where holidaymakers were gathered.
A 6-year-old Brazilian girl was found dead in 2016 surrounded by piranhas that were devouring her body after her canoe capsized during a storm.
It is not clear if she had first drowned or been attacked by the fish.
A 6-year-old boy died in 2012 after piranhas devoured the flesh on his forearm near the town of Curua in Brazil.
Epoch Times reporter Simon Veazey contributed to this report.
