明人的食魨習尚，實際上源自北宋時期的蘇軾、梅堯臣，稱其「味美值死」。明人不單是品嚐河豚，亦著手統整河豚各種異名，考察河豚的產地時節，改良捕撈的技術職能，條列烹調的先後次序以及歸納中毒的解救辦法，形成特有的「河豚文化」。囿於河豚活動於江海交界，其文化發展猶以江南地區為鼎盛，吳人「爭先不爭錢」，筵客必以河豚為禮，以品嚐「西施乳」最為珍重，一時侈靡相競，烹煮廚戶與專販商家也應運而生。明代中後期，有識之士抨擊「拼死吃河豚」的習氣，明人也開始從道義層面、性命價值自省，甚至把河豚視作「誤國」的象徵。河豚賦予明人的形象有三：一是惡類，謂其發嗔使氣；二是信者，言其應約而至；三是惑種，云其害人惑國。

The origins of the Ming dynasty fashion for consuming pufferfish can be traced back to the Song dynasty, when Su Shi 蘇軾 and Mei Yaochen 梅堯 臣 referred to the taste of pufferfish as something“to die for.＂By the Ming dynasty, people were not only eating pufferfish, but had also begun to catalogue all the alternative names for this delicacy, while inspecting and surveying the regions it inhabited and its seasons, improving techniques for catching it, specifying the order in which it should be cooked, and categorizing antidotes for its poison, all of which fostered a unique pufferfish culture. Due to the fact that pufferfish are found primarily in river estuaries, in China, the region south of the Yangtze River developed a particularly vibrant pufferfish culture, so much so that there was a saying,“The folks of Wu fight not over wealth, but over being the first [to taste the pufferfish.]＂Dining on pufferfish became a ritual for banquet guests, who vied with each other to secure a taste of the most highly-prized part of all, the Xi Shi ru 西施乳 (literally, the bosom of Xi Shi, the famous beauty of ancient China, and here referring to the white, creamy, fatty substance found in the abdomen). The craze for pufferfish thus gave rise to specialist cooks and eateries. However, from the mid-Ming onwards, intellectuals began to denouncethis obsession with eating pufferfish. Ordinary people, too, began to reassess this phenomenon from a moral perspective, to such an extent that some came to view it as a symbol for endangering the nation. Images associated with the pufferfish in the Ming dynasty included: vice, in the sense that it brings out the moaning and childish temperament in a person; cult, in that it encourages a cult following; disarray, in that it throws personal lives into disarray and turns the country into a shambles.