So I have a head of store bought green leaf lettuce. I put it in a special plastic container for preservation. I open it today, and notice a small grey gooey lump on the inside lid. I toss it, figuring it’s probably just a particle of wilted lettuce I missed in my recent washing, but hope it isn’t a slug.
Well. I tore off some lettuce, washed it, and put it in the salad spinner. In the spinner water was what was unmistakably a living critter, straw colored and sluglike.
I tossed the critter, of course, but now I wonder: should I toss the lettuce as well and wash out the containers? I read that story about the dude who ate a slug on a bet and died from it. I mean, lettuce is cheap and all, but it just offends my own natural cheapness.
Heh, I thought at first that you were saying I should bring the lettuce with me, and I was thinking, well, what if those were all the slugs? What would the customer service rep think of me slamming a bag with sluggy lettuce down on the counter in front of them?
Now the only question is whether the replacement head I buy is likely to have the same issues…
Ugh, definitely slugs. Found two more baby ones on the inside lid of the container. Gross.
Now I’m trying to remember if I washed my hands after picking off that very first one, especially since I hate lunch right after. I’m pretty sure I did, but in situations like this, it’s easy to get paranoid.
And yes, I am aware it’s still uncommon in the US. It’s just so disgusting.
Salad stuff thoroughly washed. Slugs down the kitchen sink with a lot of water and garbage disposal running (though they’re so small, they may have been missed; hopefully they were washed into the sewers). New head of lettuce obtained.
Sorry to ramble on about this, but I just feel so…unclean. Vaguely yucky. I don’t think I’ll forget about this anytime soon.
Once a friend was proud of his broccoli from his veggie garden, and said I had to try it-- best broccoli ever. He broke off a stalk, ran it under the tap and handed it to me. I was about to chomp on it when I noticed something odd. I took a closer look, and there was a big fat caterpillar along the side, the exact same green color as the stalk it was on.
Back in my college days, during a brief stint working at McDonald’s, I once found a small worm or caterpillar in a bag of the shredded lettuce we used for Big Macs. Being a conscientious employee, I alerted the manager. Without missing a beat he replied “Let me know if you find any more – we can start charging for extra meat.”
The most “Fawlty Towers” thing that ever happened to me –
Mrs P and eating at a small English Café and she found a slug in the lettuce in her salad.
The waiter was an older guy and clearly in charge so he was presumably also the owner. He took the salad away with a very terse apology. Comes back with a fresh plate of salad… that also had a slug in it.
When this was pointed out to him he grabbed it, and stormed off while muttering how busy they were.
My father was a mad keen gardener so we always had garden fresh veges when I was growing up, finding various critters in the fresh veges was no novelty, you just pick them out and keep eating
I’d support that approach if not for the afore-mentioned rat lungworm, which is definitely a risk around here. I’ve got three kinds of dark leafy greens in my garden, but rarely eat them raw because they need to be so carefully washed (our local PSAs point out that tiny baby snails can be almost impossible to see).
Last year I bought a pack of strawberries from the grocery store. I like to add them to my breakfast cereal, but find it more convenient to slice up the larger ones.
The larger strawberries tend to have a hollow space inside. Well, I sliced into one and a black beetle crawled out! Not just a small weevil type, mind you, but a half-inch long beetle!
Now, I slice ALL my strawberries, regardless of size.
A few years back, I was making Thanksgiving dinner for a half dozen people. My landlady gave me a whole head of cauliflower, which I put in a steamer.
After steaming it for about 30 minutes, I took it out and broke it open. There was a nasty black beetle inside.
I don’t know where my landlady bought her veg, but it must have been really fresh. I stuck the cauliflower back in the steamer for a few minutes and then smothered it in Velveeta sauce. We’re all still here 12 years later, so no harm done.
Mrs. J. still hasn’t forgotten the time she boiled some of my homegrown broccoli and several small green caterpillars floated to the surface of the water.
I’m sure however that everyone here has consumed countless tiny critters, dead or alive, in part or whole, in the course of eating fresh and preserved produce and other foods at home or in restaurants.
I can’t imagine tossing out a head of lettuce because I found a slug on it.
Wonder how many of those gagging at the thought of a bug or micro-mollusk in their food happily eat raw fish or undercooked meats.
