"Foreign Objects"

[gariotin]

Being in the importing/distributing biz, I always think I've heard it all, then something else occurs. I'm now blase about things like caterpillers in canned organic peppers - c'mon, if you don't want pesticides, ya gotta be willing to pick out a few bugs. Hey, in other parts of the world they are considered protein. But last summer I got a frantic call from a store - I sell fresh pickles in tubs that are made in NYC - I'm naming no names! As the store was packing out the pickles into plastic containers, they discovered a floating, upside down FROG! The light green color of its belly blended in perfectly with the green pickles. YUCK!

[dumplin]

I remember eating out somewhere and the waitress spied a hair on my salad plate. She moves in to remove the plate, while apologizing profusely. I was enjoying the salad, and the hair was mine. I lost a lot of hair after surgery and although I tried to be careful, sometimes they would end up on my food. When I cooked for others, I would tie my hair up so there was less chance of stray hairs. I did think it was nice that the waitress was so prompt to deal with the issue.

I worked at a mom and pop restaurant when I was a teen. One guy came tearing from the meat room to the kitchen and slipped on the wet floor in dishwash. The steaks hit the floor along with him. He started to pick them up and put them back on the plate with the remaining steaks that didn't hit the floor. Since the floor was covered in wet crud, I would not let him. He was very upset, but I did not want to send those steaks out to customers who would wonder what that gritty crunch was.

[sarahoc]

Several years ago I found a plastic glove inside a bean burrito from a Taco Bell in NYC, when I first moved here and was living very frugally. Unfortunately it was my second burrito of my lunch.

I walked back there and the manager tried to replace it for me. Of course I refused. That location has since closed.

[elrap]

Large dead fly in a quiche, along with a very coarse piece of thread, at a restaurant in Middletown, CT. I've never understood the connection, if there was any. (I mean between the fly and the thread, not Middletown, which is harmless enough.)

Informed the waitress - btw, the only right thing to do in this case if you're serving is IMMEDIATELY remove the food from the table and get the manager -- and she left us looking at the fly for several minutes more while she rustled up the manager. The manager looked at the fly, too (second mistake) and agreed that it was not supposed to be there.

He offered to buy dinner, but we just went straight to dessert and coffee and got out of there.

--L. Rap

[elrap]

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.

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I can totally identify, done the same thing! Eventually went to 3M pads in the kitchen and never looked back. I've seen those little curls of metal in other restaurants, too.

--L. Rap

[McDuff]

I was working in a bistro that was famed for their Onion Soup Gratinee. 

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We had a customer freaking out in a place I worked at, insisting that there were fingernails in the cheese on his onion soup. Turned out that the shredder attachment on the Hobart was broken and we were using the plastic food stomper for the meat grinder to push the cheese through and it was getting shredded when it hit the whirling disc.

My daughter once got the nozzle attachment to the coke machine from McD's in her drink. They were pretty blase about it.

[Kapuliperson]

I've found hair and worms in my food, but people I know have found nails, flies, and roaches in their food. thank god I haven't though :p

[arielle]

Oh my God!

I cannot believe that you have all had such terrible experiences! You do realise that the legal concept of 'duty of care' was established in the UK in the 20s (30s?) by a case [Donoghue and Stevenson] in which a woman found a snail in the bottom of a bottle of ginger ale! She sued, and won. I can't believe the blase attitude of the people who are selling bottles with glass in them, wafers with lizards etc. As we say, 'shit happens', and I understand that, but people should stand behind their product, and know that the most important thing is to make the consumer happy. It's pretty traumatic to eat a burger, and then find half a cockroach in there! Bleuck!!!!!!

The worst thing that has happened to me was receiving a drink in a nightclub that had a piece of glass in it. I only discovered it once it was in my mouth and halfway down my throat. I guess something was smashed close to the ice bin. As I could not show the manager the glass itself, I was obliged to wipe my lips onto a napkin to show the blood that was welling in my mouth. They were very apologetic about it, and immediately replaced the ice wells...etc, and really took care of me both that night and each time I returned (free drinks, anyone?)

[arielle]

The first place I ever worked was a nightclub, and on busy nights, the owner would sometimes come into the bar to 'help' us (usually by taking orders, but then neither making them nor telling us what they were! ) anyway, one night when we were getting absolutely slammed, one of the bar backs shattered a glass right over the ice well. Whilst we organised replacement ice, I sprayed grenadine (red means DANGER!!!!, right?) over the ice so no-one would use it. I returned a minute later to see her scooping ice from there into a glass to give to a customer! I asked her what the hell she was doing, didn't she see the grenadine? Didn't she know that it meant DO NOT USE ME? Her response: Oh, I thought it was just some blood!

[eunny jang]

Took a big bite of a lovely burger at a popular diner here in DC...and was rewarded with a mouthful of wax paper. They hadn't bothered to remove the stuff separating the frozen burger patties.

[deltadoc]

Here is my list:

1. Found a beetle cooked right into the air pocket on the bottom of a McDonald's hamburger bun. (I always look the bun over both sides now since 20 years ago).

2. Pulled out a huge piece of white vein about 1" x 2" cooked into the center of a Burger King whopper. (I won't eat at BK anymore).

3. Found a bleached white whole cockroach in the Tabouli at Adul's Afandy (since closed).

4. Found a piece of black rubber gasket in my personal milk container.

5. Found a black hair long hair in my wife's Greek gravy dish.

6. Found a pubic hair on a Greek combination plate from a different restaurant than #5 above.

7. Found a green booger (it couldn't have been anything else) on the outside of the wax paper wrapper for a roast beef sandwich from a drive-in. (I had complained two days earlier about the old cole slaw). Was there a connection? I don't eat there anymore.

I don't want to remember anymore incidents. Maybe that is why I eat in most days now!

doc

[Ladybug]

While I was living in Turkey, one of my friends found HALF of a roach in the middle of her cheese borek.

Another friend, a Turkish lady, used to insist upon seeing the kitchen before she'd eat in a restaurant. She barged into one kitchen to see a guy in the bathroom (door open) washing vegetables with the same hose used to spray down oneself after using the faciliities. For the uninitiated, Turkish toilets are porcelain holes in the ground that you crouch over to go - TP is generally not available. Instead, you're to spray yourself down with a length of rubber hose attached to a spigot in the bathroom and drip-dry, I guess. Some public restrooms would have an attendant that charged admission and handed out one puny cocktail sized napkin. ???!!

Once I found a brown piece of rubber/plastic in a package of Domino's light brown sugar. I meant to call the company, but never got around to it.

[viva]

I've seen little gnats or what-have-you in soup or salad - they don't bother me. I pick them out and move on. A large, juicy bug like a roach would bug (heh) me, but I've never experienced this.

Same if I see a hair - I just convince myself it is mine.

The most unusual item I've been served was a piece of wood mulch in my cup of Wendy's chili. I threw it out and ate the rest.

That which does not kill me makes me stronger.

[dougery]

I was eating at a local sushi bar (I will not name) and the snapper nigiri had a very long hard worm that was about 2mm in diameter. Although disgusting, I have to admit I was morbidly fascinated by it.

I no longer eat raw snapper...

I have seen a lot of really disgusting things, one that sticks out is a whole chicken frier. I was preparing to debone the chicken, reached into the carcas to pull out the neck, livers, etc... and pulled out a handfull of some disgusting wormy things.

Worms + food = pure disgust

Edited September 17, 2004 by dougery (log)