"Foreign Objects"

[petite tête de chou]

My husband broke off a small portion of his tooth whilst eating a home-made supper...I was finishing his salad and found the shard of his tooth. -gag-

[The Little Blue House]

A hair on the edge of a dessert plate.

At Charlie Trotter's.

I will be the first to admit that the waiter saw the sort of disbelieving look on my face before I realized that I was making it, flew over, snagged the plate, and brought out what I am pretty sure was a brand new plate very, very quickly and quietly. It didn't ruin my meal, and I usually forget about it when retelling the story of my meal there... But still. A Hair. On My Plate. At Charlie Trotter's.

[Pickles]

Don't adults stop losing their teeth at some point?

Not if they're punched out by disgruntled managers!

[naguere]

Come to think of it--has anyone ever done that kind of thing? Lied, I mean, to get free product?

A letter in The Soldier, a British Army magazine in the 60's. The soldier had written to Wilkinsons Sword, a company that manufactures razor blades. He said he had been on jungle training for three months and only had one of their blades, but by re-sharpening it on the inside of a wet tumbler it had lasted the wholle period.

Wilkinsons customer relaltions wrote back thanking him for praising their product and enclosed another three months supply , just the one blade.'

[auntdot]

I cut my tongue on a piece of glass I found in my Campbell's soup.  I sent the offending shard of glass and the empty can to their headquarters.  They sent me back coupons for MORE soup!!! 

Once, as a kid, found a cockroach in a bottle of cola (either Coke or Pepsi, can't remember which one).

Actually I found it in my mouth after a healthy swig of the swill.

Yech.

I did not ask for recompense.

For even at that tender age, I knew that there was no way I could prove the roach was in the bottle when I opened it.

People will try all kinds of dodges to make a few bucks.

The companies know that. They also know glass, roaches, and all kinds of nasty things wind up in their products.

But it is almost impossible to prove.

So they send you a few coupons knowing that most of the offended people probably did suck on that roach.

And they will try to ameliorate your anger without accepting guilt.

The lawyers have told them what to do, and the big companies pay kazillions for those guys.

Take your coupons, use them, or not.

I assure you those guys are on secure legal ground.

[mona]

My mother always told me that we should consider odd things found in food a "bonus." Heh.

::Cue Four Yorkshiremen skit::

[cjs]

I had someone return their Quesadilla because there was one of those plastic bread bag closer thingies in with the melted cheese. ooops....... the thing was.. the guy was more upset that the "best before" date was for 3 weeks previous! (I guess that one was in the freezer for a tad longer than the rest)

[razzar]

Once, eating in a seafood place near Yorktown, VA, a friend found a little crab-like critter in the clam he was eating. When he pointed it out to the wait-person, she responded: "Oh, you can eat that. It's supposed to be a delicatessen."

[baw]

I was just wondering how to hold my hungry belly over until dinner .. reading this thread did the trick!

I have one too ... when I was in high school, i found a twisted nail (as in a thick metal nail) in a tater tot when I popped it into my mouth and chomped down. The cafeteria lady offered me a fresh bowl of tots .. from the same batch!

[aliwaks]

But the topper was these "fluffy" looking things in bottles of flavored douche.

I'm sorry ummm flavored douche..is that what I think it is?

In high school a girl in my math class found a piece of borwn grape hubba bubba, send it back a got a whole case of grape hubba bubba...much to the dismay of our math teacher for weeks we were all heavily grape scented

My father found a staple in a reese's peanut butter cup sent it back and go a case of assorted candy.

This started my brother on a somewhat felonious journey throughout which he supplimented his income at college by sending back bits of chewed up whatever with hair, staples etc and getting baoxes of free stuff then selling it at a discount price to his friends.

[mklynch]

I was slicing deli turkey on a slicer and hit something hard. Upon inspection, I found the top of a rubber spatula. It was "chewed and glued" turkey roast - which I've never eaten since. (what else is in there?)

I was plating cake - Sysco from a box, and found a bandaid - fortunatly, between the slices.

Found broken glass in bottled water, called the company and the vice president (!) told me that was just the was it was when glass was used on a bottling line, you're bound to get some breakage at some point. Never bought their water again - come to think of it, haven't seen in for sale anywhere in quite a while.

But when someone finds a lady bug in the salad, my reaction is that I'm so glad the greens weren't sprayed with some poison.

[morda]

I've got two good ones. One time we went to one of the many franchised Pizzeria Uno's around DC. When my pizza came out, there was a corkscrewed metal shaving melted into the cheese on my pizza! We called the manager over, who all but accused me of planting the shaving and refused to comp anything or bring me a new pizza. Like I carry around my own pizza oven to melt things into the cheese. Right. We've never been back.

I found one of those corkscrew things in a salad bar once. The thing must have been 2 inches long. I didn't care for any compension, but I did tell the manager of the cafeteria for safety's sake. He mumbled an apology and shrugged it off. It was the second to last day that his company would be running the cafeteria anyway.

My friend once found a bit of paper in her bagel. She was eating plain, so she hadn't split it with a knife, just took a big bite. As she pulled, the bit of paper turned out to be an entire paper towel! Needless to say she didn't eat any more bagel from that place.

I often find a lot of long black hair in my food...but I think it's from my own head

[JustKay]

A few years ago, my Mom was enjoying a packet of imported chocolate wafers I bought her.

Suddenly while dipping into the packet, her fingers touched something 'different'.

It was a dead and dried up lizard!!!!!

TOTALLY GROSSSSS!!!!!

She called me up a couple of days later and I then called up the importer of the stuff and the guy refered me to their Singapore office. I spoke to them and he wants me to send the packet and lizard to them so that they can determin it is indeed 'their' lizard and not a 'local' lizard that got into the packet - he suggested that my Mom was careless and left the packet open. No way! then he said could be the local shops carelessness. I told them, the packet was intact prior to opening and the wafers are still crisps. He said, no lizard, no talk.

So I called back the local rep and he could not help me either. BUT he did say that it has happened before BUT the other person did send in the lizard.

OMG!!! What kind of manufacturing facility do they have there? And this was by quite a reputable (european) manufacturer.

Needless to say, I have never anything of that brand again. Yulks!

edited to add: DH was halfway thru a sandwich at a fast food place when I noticed that the bun had funny green spots on the bottom. It was mold! They offered to replace it but we just wanted our money back.

Edited May 11, 2004 by kew (log)

[JustKay]

Many years ago, I had the great displeasure (for many reasons besides the following) of working in a bakery in Italy. We were making sesame cookies, and it was my job to roll the dough through the sesame seeds. When I noticed that some of the sesame seeds were moving ,I quickly asked the boss what to do. To which he replied, "eh, a little bug never hurt anyone, besides no one notices!" (!!!!!!!!!)

OMG!!!!

Read my post - the incident with my Mom.

[I82Much]

I don't think I have any personal experiences with this or if I do I've since pushed them from my memory. My teacher, on the other hand, told us a story of how her daughter and she had gone to Outback Steakhouse and ordered brownie a la mode. Apparently it's a monstrously thick brownie, and they found a mouse inside it. Disgusssting.

[rickmartin]

In defense of critter problems, I know these things happen. Being a chef I have seen it all, most problems thwarted before reaching customers thank god.

My best story for the thread took place in the kitchen and no customer was harmed. I had just opened a case of California grapes and was transferring them to a colander for rinsing. I just happened to notice some black legs just before I grabbed the next bunch. It was a black widow spider, thankfully hindered by the refridgerator temperature, that I was about to grab. The spider was alive and well otherwise. A cook took it home and kept it as pet until she produced hundreds of tiny black widows, some of which escaped. I'm still anticipating an article in the paper about Kansas' new black widow population.

RM

[NeroW]

My Sanitation teacher found a pubic hair in his Shamrock Shake.

[rabidscottsman]

When i was in high school i worked at a local family restaurant. One day we had a worker installing some molding in our grill area.Our cook heard the guy say "oops" and didnt think anything about it. About 15 minutes later a customer found a small nail in one of the pancakes

I can remember the owner chewing this guy out big time. The customer,thank god, didnt bite into the nail and was very understanding over the incident and took the "stuff happens" approach to it. We ended up giving a free meal to her and she forgot about the incident.

[neep]

Our household used to enjoy ordering in from (a long-closed) Upper West Side chinese restaurant. In particular they cooked a fine deep-fried soft-shell crab (in the salt and pepper style I seem to remember, but it may be an overactive imagination). However our culinary idyll ended when we found a battered and fried water-bug along with our crabs. Bad enough in another dish, but it really doesn't help to be reminded of insects when eating soft shell crabs.

[cook2eat]

Went to lunch with a group from work at a BBQ chain. Near the end of the meal one person found the flip side of his garlic bread had a giant cockroach grilled into the bread. Everyone at the table was grossed out and the six of us were comp-ed.

[jayt90]

My grad student days in the 70's , I lived in the East Village , and one day while shopping in a supermart spotted small thin white worms in the cod fish trays.

I called the health dept., and they reported back to me a couple of days later, confirming it, and fining the store.

[ruthcooks]

My ex's family legend was about his spinster Great Aunt Jen who lived to be 96 or so and still kept her cookstove in the kitchen alongside the new electric stove. She once cooked Thanksgiving dinner and someone found an open safety pin in the cranberry sauce. No logical explanation was ever devised.

I try to be tolerant, and when I find a hair just assume it's my own unless its red, blonde, curly or a foot long.

[klc14]

Once I went to dinner with a friend and her husband and he found a small roach clinging to a chunk of the crushed ice in his ice tea. Called the waitress, who apologized and then said, "We had the exterminator in today, they told us we might see more bugs coming out of the woodwork!" He got a new iced tea and they comped the drinks.

We thought perhaps she could have left out the bit about the exterminator.

[naguere]

Collecting rations for our night shift . I was a soldier communicator in Bahrain (1964), i went for a scoop of sugar from the storage bin, i picked up poop, a dog turd was embeded in the heap.

Took the sugar anyway and never told.

[beercancan]

I sent out my first bowl of soup back in 1987 at the Boothbay Schooner Restaurant in Boothbay Harbor, Maine. I was so proud. A waitress soon returned to the kitchen with a small piece of metal in her hand. A diner had given it to her as a piece of a tin can. At the time I was offended because it was a piece of a pot-cleaning scrubby, not a tin can! I had made my soup from scratch! But now I undertsand that it really doesn't matter what the diner found in his soup, just that he found something.