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Restaurant Owner Convicted of Manslaughter


liuzhou

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A  UK restaurant owner has been convicted of manslaughter after a customer died from a severe anaphylactic shock after being served a curry containing peanuts. The customer had made the restaurant aware that he was allergic to peanuts.

 

Guardian link

 

He will be sentenced later today, but has been told he faces imprisonment.

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...your dancing child with his Chinese suit.

 

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If someone tells me they are allergic to something and I serve them some form of that something anyway, with said someone having no way of knowing that's what I did, and the person becomes ill or dies as a result of my ignoring the information I was given, I deserve whatever punishment I receive. Yes, the word "allergy" is over and incorrectly used on a regular basis by people wanting to make sure something they don't like doesn't end up on their plate but I have no way of knowing when that's what's happening so the safe route is to take all allergy warnings seriously.

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It's kinda like wrestling a gorilla... you don't stop when you're tired, you stop when the gorilla is tired.

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Sad, very sad!

For fear of negligence or innocent error, I sure as heck wouldn't trust my life to someone else if I knew I had a life threatening allergy!

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1 hour ago, DiggingDogFarm said:

Sad, very sad!

For fear of negligence or innocent error, I sure as heck wouldn't trust my life to someone else if I knew I had a life threatening allergy!

 

Same thought occurred to me. 

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After reading the story, the restaurant owner knew what he was doing (swapping out the almond flour for ground nuts) and deserves the sentence.  I have to wonder though, had the man eaten there before?  agreed, very sad.  how heartbreaking for the man's family.

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I'm confused - The Guardian says the fatal dish was chicken tikka masala, but aside from one mention of peanut oil for sauteing, none of the first several recipes that came up in my search for chicken tikka masala call for nuts of any sort.  No almonds, no peanuts, no cashews, just yogurt, tomato, spices and cream, so what the hell?  Am I finding only American versions and the British version uses nuts? Either the Guardian got the dish wrong, or this guy was really phenomenally cavalier about putting peanuts where they don't belong. 

 

Does anybody know what Indian curries should include almonds?  I think I've seen nuts in rice dishes and sweets, but curry or other savory dishes?

Edited by pastrygirl
almonds (log)
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29 minutes ago, JoNorvelleWalker said:

Are we talking about ground nuts (such as peanuts) or ground nuts as in nuts that have been ground up?

 

I think here we are talking about nuts that have been ground. The term "ground nuts" as in peanuts isn't really used in the UK.

 

Certainly many curries include ground nuts, particularly almonds.

 

As is pointed out on Wikipedia:

 

Quote

there is no standard recipe for chicken tikka masala; a survey found that of 48 different recipes, the only common ingredient was chicken.

 

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...your dancing child with his Chinese suit.

 

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  • 4 weeks later...

Huh?   I don't think you read the whole story.  

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Anna Nielsen aka "Anna N"

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3 hours ago, Lisi said:

Oh wow... All it takes to mess up your life is to lose your focus for just a second. Sad story

 

As Anna pointed out, no one lost their "focus for just a second." The restaurant owner deliberately swapped out almond powder for a groundnut mix, then knowingly served it to a severely allergic customer. The customer had made his allergy very clear to the restaurant. *And* this wasn't the first occurrence. 

 

As a side note, my students' not carefully reading the entire article/instructions/syllabus/etc. was a major pet peeve, and concern, of mine.

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Just now, Alex said:

 

As Anna pointed out, no one lost their "focus for just a second." The restaurant owner deliberately swapped out almond powder for a groundnut mix, then knowingly served it to a severely allergic customer. The customer had made his allergy very clear to the restaurant. *And* this wasn't the first occurrence. 

 

As a side note, my students' not carefully reading the entire article/instructions/syllabus/etc. was a major pet peeve, and concern, of mine.

Oh I totally missed that, in that case it is murder. Unbelievable how someone would deliberately do that to another person. Makes me sad to hear

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