TECCHI-RI てっちり
Meanings
Fugu hot pot, especially as the dish is called in the Kansai region. The name combines TETSU/TEPPŌ, a slang name for pufferfish, with CHIRI, a type of hot-pot dish made with white fish.
↓Fugu（puffer /blow fish)
↓Tecchiri
Dogmatic Opinion
Apparently pufferfish came to be called TEPPŌ—“gun”—through a joke: if it “hits” you, you die. CHIRI refers to a hot-pot dish made with white fish such as cod.
As someone from the Kanto region, fugu itself has never been particularly familiar to me. I do not remember seeing it sold at ordinary supermarkets, and naturally it never appeared on the family dinner table or in school lunches.
I have been treated to fugu at expensive restaurants a few times. I thought it was light, refined, and delicious. But if you ask whether it is so delicious that I would pay for it myself while entertaining even the slightest anxiety about death, I am not convinced.
If someone told me I could never eat fugu again for the rest of my life, I would be perfectly okay with that. Purely a personal opinion.
For Japanese Learners
Fugu hot pot is the clearest English description. TECCHI-RI is mainly a Kansai term, and English readers will usually benefit from a short explanation of fugu rather than a literal translation of the Japanese wordplay behind the name.
