Almost instant food poisoning? Had to be...but how?

Well, it smelled good after I stuck it in the microwave and I didn’t notice the small amount of mold until afterwards. It did taste strange at the first bite, but I had topped the dog with mustard, relish and onions. I was visiting my father’s house and thought it was the generic brand mustard that tasted bad. It was during the second bite that it really tasted bad, but I swallowed anyway. I figured, hey, cheap mustard ain’t going to hurt me. Just a few seconds later it felt like someone punched me in the gut.

I was once at a conference and had breakfast in the hotel’s restaurant. Waffles and sausage. After eating, I sat down for the symposium and five minutes into it, became horribly and violently ill. I was so sick I wished for death.

There are a lot of vague terms being bandied about in this thread. I have had a violent reaction to spoiled food in as little as 15 minutes. If “having a violent reaction to spoiled food” works as a definition of “food poisoning,” as I suggest it does, then there are some terms to be defined and agreed upon in this discussion.

[quote=“1920s Style “Death Ray”, post:2, topic:469481”]

The food had been sitting in an Esky
[/QUOTE]
What the hell is an Esky?

An “ice box”.

OK, that’s the name my grandmother used for a refrigerator.

But unless it was unplugged or otherwise not working, how would 6 hours of refrigeration let food get spoiled?

It’s not a refrigerator, it’s a simple insulated box that will keep food or drinks cool for a while. Esky - Wikipedia

In a previous life I would’ve called it a “chilli bin”.

As I have, most unfortunately, discovered on four occasions (involving, in order, shrimp, swordfish, tuna, and a Caesar dressing with anchovies), there is actually one type of fish- and seafood-related food poisoning where symptoms can start to appear as early as 5 minutes after consumption: acute histamine toxicity. Evidently, it’s often confused with seafood allergies, but the most common cause – and what felled me each time – is inadequate refrigeration or spoiled fish.

Six years later, the OP is still puking.