# Tales of Food Safety Horror **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [July 1, 2008, 2:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tales-of-food-safety-horror/454854 "2008-07-01T02:57:52Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Larry\_Mudd](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/f14d63/32.png) [@Larry\_Mudd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Larry_Mudd)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2008, 2:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tales-of-food-safety-horror/454854/1 "2008-07-01T02:57:52Z")
Today I went to [T&T Asian Supermarket](http://www.tnt-supermarket.com/about/about-e.php), where an attempt to purchase salmon filets was aborted after the fish guy picked my selection up off the ice, grabbed a plastic bag, and then during the process of transferring it to the bag laid it down (skin side up) on a filthy mopping-up rag. He looked at me with blank incomprehension when I told him that I didn’t want it, after all. Seriously, the entire surface of the fish was in full contact with the dingy, gore-streaked rag - and not briefly, but laid down on it repeatedly as he tried to open the plastic bag with his rubber-gloved hands. I guess the gloves are to keep his hands clean. …and just like that _all_ packaged-in-store meat and fish products are on my short list of things that are not to be purchased at this conveniently-located market. “Uh, you just set my fish down on a dirty rag.” **look of utter incomprehension** “What? Something wrong?” Wow. At least I actually saw it happen, and didn’t take the fish home to cultivate for a few days before preparing it. That could have ended badly. It made me think, though – of food safety (or general food hygiene and squickiness) abominations that occur away from the public eye, known only to the knowers who know. The first hint I ever had of this body of occult knowledge was a co-worker I had at an office equipment supplier, who was formerly employed by [B.C. Hot House](http://www.bchothouse.com/). She was cryptic: “All I’m sayin’,” she muttered, “is _wash your produce_.” The import of her laconic advice never really made much of an impression on me until years later, when I briefly worked at Shan Ming Mushroom farm in Maple Ridge. I was generally interested in mushroom cultivation, and thought that seeing up close how shitake and enoki mushrooms were professionally produced would be educational. Boy, what an education. The importance of washing produce was brought home hard to me in the packaging room there. Women typically stopped their work for lunch with a cafeteria-style tray laden with bundles of enoki mushrooms in various stages of packing production sitting in front of them. Several of these women (being fastidious ladies) religiously flossed their teeth after their meals, sitting directly over neat stacks of mushrooms ready to be sealed in plastic. Nice. That wasn’t what _really_ brought it home for me, though. Made me a bit squeamish, but not enough to be completely scandalized. That came when our employer explained that that time of year had come when we might reasonably expect a surprise health inspection, therefore - with regrets - hairnets, aprons, and rubber gloves must be worn. You know, until that silly inspection was over, then everyone could be comfortable again. Not _terribly_ shocking, right? No - the truly awful part was that everyone wore their gear to the bathroom. (Only _some_ wore the gloves back and forth.) This is probably enough to make most people go “eeew.” What hasn’t been explained is that there wasn’t really a _bathroom_, as such. There was a Port-o-Let. A Jiffy-John. One of those things. Not a _nice_ Jiffy-John, either - not one of those pleasant compartments found at fairgrounds and whatnot. The Jiffy-John deserves a paragraph break. Let’s put one here, arbitrarily. This thing was scheduled to be emptied _every two weeks._ I looked forward to that more than payday. After only three days, entering that thing was agony. Into the second week, you could catch it on the wind _in the packaging room_. Totally sickening. Everyone (save I) wore their “food safety gesture” aprons in there. I love enoki mushrooms, and I try to buy local - but I could never pick up a pack of those without thinking about that. I know that there are plenty of Dopers with cautionary tales to make the above anecdote seem like a trifle. So, out with it – please bring me tales to keep me scrubbing produce obsessively - 'cuz I’m sloppy with stuff I haven’t had first-hand accounts of. ---
**Author:** ![WhyNot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/c77e96/32.png) [@WhyNot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WhyNot)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2008, 3:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tales-of-food-safety-horror/454854/2 "2008-07-01T03:02:34Z")
Y’know, after walking through open air meat markets (the literal kind) in Oaxaca, Mexico, where kindly grandmothers stand at the entryway and stir -with bare hands - giant baskets of cooked grasshoppers for sale as snack food and absolutely nothing is refrigerated or on ice… Well, let’s just say I grew a new appreciation for the human digestive tract and tried not to think about it just before dinner. ---
**Author:** ![running\_coach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/running_coach/32/15836_2.png) [@running\_coach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/running_coach)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2008, 4:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tales-of-food-safety-horror/454854/3 "2008-07-01T04:41:53Z")
I was making a delivery to a small market. The walk-in cooler door was next to the meat counter. Middle of summer, no A/C and tubs of chicken sitting out in stacks and one of the women was changing her baby’s diaper on the counter. :eek: ---
**Author:** ![Throatwarbler\_Mangrove](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/8c91f0/32.png) [@Throatwarbler\_Mangrove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Throatwarbler_Mangrove)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2008, 4:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tales-of-food-safety-horror/454854/4 "2008-07-01T04:59:12Z")
Ahhh T&T. [Most recent health inspector orders (inactive) for T&T Supermarket (PDF)](http://www.calgaryhealthregion.ca/hecomm/envhealth/Executive_Officer_Orders/Orders_Food/2008/Inactive/T_T_Supermarket_9650_Harvest_Hills_BV_NE_Calgary_January_24_2008_I.pdf) [T&T Managers plead guilty, fined $36k (PDF)](http://www.google.ca/url?sa=t&ct=res&cd=1&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.calgaryhealthregion.com%2Fhecomm%2Fenvhealth%2FExecutive_Officer_Orders%2FOrders_Food%2F2008%2FInactive%2FT_T_Supermarket_9650_Harvest_Hills_BV_NE_Calgary_January_24_2008_I.pdf&ei=obdpSLfsIqmopwSC77HbCA&usg=AFQjCNFKL_BCaH8aMCSmUQN6qGYwRZ6Rzg&sig2=qFuyJFTC7N9G7bL86T87CA) Of course, the place is still packed every day. The stuff from your foreign devil stores just doesn’t taste the same. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Mindfield](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mindfield/32/19759_2.png) [@Mindfield](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mindfield)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2008, 5:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tales-of-food-safety-horror/454854/5 "2008-07-01T05:10:16Z")
I’m reminded of a fairly recent health inspection blitz that occurred in the Toronto and surrounding areas about two or three years ago. One of the oriental restaurants that I recall from the story that failed the inspection failed rather spectacularly. Among the grievous culinary sins was the fact that fresh fish was gutted and processed out back, behind the restaurant, on a grimy wooden board set atop a wooden crate that was once used for some sort of produce, but was now a makeshift table set among the garbage in the back alley. (I wish I could find a link to that one.) And then there was [this lovely rat infestation](http://www.blogto.com/eat_drink/2008/02/rats_feast_at_dumpling_house/) at a Toronto dumpling house. ---
**Author:** ![bathsheba](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/9e8a1a/32.png) [@bathsheba](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bathsheba)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2008, 11:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tales-of-food-safety-horror/454854/6 "2008-07-01T11:21:58Z")
[Toxis asparagus.](http://www.news.com.au/couriermail/story/0,23739,23944559-953,00.html) ---
**Author:** ![nd\_n8](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/439d5e/32.png) [@nd\_n8](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nd_n8)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2008, 12:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tales-of-food-safety-horror/454854/7 "2008-07-01T12:55:06Z")
More of a fast food horror story but - while working at a local McD’s in the 80’s I personally wittnessed the phenominon of dancing cheese. If a fry cook tossed a slice of cheese on the grill it would melt, turn brown and bubbly and then get scraped off. But, if that fry cook hocked up a nice sized lung oyster onto the grill and set the cheese on it, it would dance all over the grill for quite a while until the flegm dried up, the it would go brown and crunchy and ready to be scraped into the grease trap. The contest was to see whose loogy would make the cheese dance the longest. And to this day, my kids don’t understand why I don’t want to go to McD’s ---
**Author:** ![Zsofia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/7bcc69/32.png) [@Zsofia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zsofia)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2008, 2:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tales-of-food-safety-horror/454854/8 "2008-07-01T14:06:17Z")
Eh, you can’t think about it _too_ much. I mean, I avoid filthy-rag-fish if I see it, but if I spent my life thinking about where it went and what touched it I’d never eat. ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2008, 2:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tales-of-food-safety-horror/454854/9 "2008-07-01T14:14:23Z")
Catering for a large harvest festival event, some of the meal preparation had been farmed out to individuals. One guy brought in the shepherd’s pie he had been deputised to make. He had a bandage on his hand. I asked him what happened. He said that he had accidentally cut off the tip of his finger while preparing the meat for the pie and that he was unable to find the piece of his finger, but he was pretty sure it wasn’t in the pie, because he had thoroughly searched through the meat looking for it. ---
**Author:** ![Spoons](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spoons/32/3141_2.png) [@Spoons](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spoons)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2008, 2:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tales-of-food-safety-horror/454854/10 "2008-07-01T14:19:05Z")
[QUOTE=Throatwarbler Mangrove] Ahhh T&T. [/QUOTE] You know, when I read the OP, my first thought was the T&T that your links were about. Glad to know I’m not the only one who noticed how disgusting that particular one is. ---
**Author:** ![postcards](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/8e8cbc/32.png) [@postcards](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/postcards)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2008, 2:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tales-of-food-safety-horror/454854/11 "2008-07-01T14:24:54Z")
[QUOTE=Mindfield] And then there was [this lovely rat infestation](http://www.blogto.com/eat_drink/2008/02/rats_feast_at_dumpling_house/) at a Toronto dumpling house. [/QUOTE] And here I thought such things were [unique to New York.](http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17401838/) ---
**Author:** ![jjimm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba8739/32.png) [@jjimm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jjimm)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2008, 2:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tales-of-food-safety-horror/454854/12 "2008-07-01T14:55:53Z")
I have a picture I took of a slab of beef sitting outdoors one afternoon on a wooden chopping board in front of a butcher’s shop in Hong Kong, in 95-degree heat, that had been there since it was delivered unrefrigerated that morning, covered in little sparrows that were eating the fat off it. I’m sure it made some lovely steaks later on that day. ---
**Author:** ![Dung\_Beetle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dung_beetle/32/7945_2.png) [@Dung\_Beetle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dung_Beetle)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2008, 3:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tales-of-food-safety-horror/454854/13 "2008-07-01T15:01:40Z")
[QUOTE=nd\_n8] The contest was to see whose loogy would make the cheese dance the longest. [/QUOTE] I thought we’d played all the games, but not that one! I did see someone’s drivers license get grilled into oblivion once. I also used to clean the hot grease fryers. Mostly I’d get out Happy Meal toys melted into interesting new shapes, but one time I got a lizard. He was extremely well-done. ---
**Author:** ![Santo\_Rugger](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e95f7d/32.png) [@Santo\_Rugger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Santo_Rugger)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2008, 3:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tales-of-food-safety-horror/454854/14 "2008-07-01T15:16:45Z")
Heh. I’ve seen just about everything that one could imagine in the back of a KFC go into the fryer. Often breaded. I’d only eat anything out of those fryers on the first batch after filtering; not that it mattered. ---
**Author:** ![Robot\_Arm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/robot_arm/32/18280_2.png) [@Robot\_Arm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Robot_Arm)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2008, 3:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tales-of-food-safety-horror/454854/15 "2008-07-01T15:34:13Z")
[QUOTE=Dung Beetle] I also used to clean the hot grease fryers. Mostly I’d get out Happy Meal toys melted into interesting new shapes, but one time I got a lizard. He was extremely well-done. [/QUOTE] Was this when _Jurassic Park_ was in the theaters, by any chance? ---
**Author:** ![dangermom](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e274bd/32.png) [@dangermom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dangermom)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2008, 4:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tales-of-food-safety-horror/454854/16 "2008-07-01T16:09:59Z")
Near my house there was a Chinese buffet place–you know, all you can eat for a low price. A fairly big place. My husband’s boss liked to eat there. For some reason a police team saw the back kitchen, and it was a horror scene. (The county health board hadn’t inspected for a few years–there’s a backlog.) Rats, filth, buckets full of mysterious black liquids, dripping ooze–it was bad enough to make the hazmat team ill. The place got cleaned up and re-opened, but of course no one went there. So they sold to some cousins who changed the name and re-opened, and no one went there. So they sold to some other people…anyway right now it’s empty. IMO they should just raze the place; no one who remembers is going to eat there again. ---
**Author:** ![ralph124c](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/8797f3/32.png) [@ralph124c](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ralph124c)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2008, 4:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tales-of-food-safety-horror/454854/17 "2008-07-01T16:10:12Z")
A few years back, a trendy Boston restaurant was written up, by the BOH. They were in the habit of leaving food out in the open, where local wildlife 9gutter hawks) could sample and walk on it! BLEEEECHHH ---
**Author:** ![nd\_n8](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/439d5e/32.png) [@nd\_n8](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nd_n8)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2008, 4:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tales-of-food-safety-horror/454854/18 "2008-07-01T16:28:12Z")
[QUOTE=Mangetout] Catering for a large harvest festival event, some of the meal preparation had been farmed out to individuals. One guy brought in the shepherd’s pie he had been deputised to make. He had a bandage on his hand. I asked him what happened. He said that he had accidentally cut off the tip of his finger while preparing the meat for the pie and that he was unable to find the piece of his finger, but he was pretty sure it wasn’t in the pie, because he had thoroughly searched through the meat looking for it. [/QUOTE] So was he a shepherd? Can’t have authentic shepherds pie without some shepherd in it. ---
**Author:** ![nd\_n8](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/439d5e/32.png) [@nd\_n8](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nd_n8)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2008, 4:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tales-of-food-safety-horror/454854/19 "2008-07-01T16:31:40Z")
[QUOTE=Dung Beetle] I thought we’d played all the games, but not that one! I did see someone’s drivers license get grilled into oblivion once. I also used to clean the hot grease fryers. Mostly I’d get out Happy Meal toys melted into interesting new shapes, but one time I got a lizard. He was extremely well-done. [/QUOTE] No lizards, but I do recall watching roaches turn into popcorn after falling into the grease. ---
**Author:** ![Lightray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lightray/32/391_2.png) [@Lightray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lightray)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2008, 4:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tales-of-food-safety-horror/454854/20 "2008-07-01T16:47:42Z")
I worked at a couple movie theaters while in high school (many, many years ago), and won’t eat the popcorn at all. General Cinemas popped fresh, but Wehrenburg trucked it in every few days or so, and it was warehoused to go stale. The “buttery” or “golden” topping, unfortunately, had the ingredients on the label of the can. Ick. And one of the concession stand jobs when opening in the morning was to fish out all of the cockroaches who had fallen into the hot topping and cooked… so bug parts wouldn’t get squirted onto someone’s Jumbo Popcorn with golden topping. And I foolishly scheduled myself to work the day they bug-bombed the theater, thinking it’d be an easy shift. I was in the lobby after they had set off a bug-bomb in one of the theaters, and shrieked and fled before a figurative wave of cockroaches fleeing from the theater… toward the concession stand. When we opened up later that afternoon, I had to help in concession, and _many_ times had to come up with a quick excuse as to why I couldn’t hand someone their Jumbo Popcorn… what with the cockroach waving jauntily atop. I shudder hearing _other_ people munch on popcorn during movies, 'cause all I can imagine is them not caring that they suddenly got a crunchy piece that kind of tickled going down. :eek: [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tales-of-food-safety-horror/454854.md?page=2)