Bye bye salsa!
About a month ago (if I haven’t mentioned it already) a few of us suffered from severe abdominal pain, an awful throbbing headache, nausea, diarrhea, and were clueless as to what was causing it. Food poisoning of course, but it lasted a week. For some time I thought I was the only one suffering from it, only to find later that there were so many other DC acquaintances suffering silently, or loudly enough but unlike me they were not actively seeking out poisoned companions. We began short-listing restaurants we may all have eaten in, but couldn’t find much commonality, except perhaps starbucks or subway.
A week later, I was in the metro reading the Express with a huge front page article about salmonella virus infecting tomatoes in the DC-metro area. Hundreds of people reported that week as suffering from food-poisoning. Tomatoes were pulled out of the market, restaurants and stores banned food with raw tomatoes (salsa, salads and the like), we dreaded even eating cooked ones. Only I know how much I missed my rasam.
It’s been six weeks since the FDA issued the tomato-warning. And now that it has been lifted and declared safe to eat, jalapenos and cilantro have decided to play host to salmonella. They too are being removed from the market and we won’t for a while crave spicy food or fresh herbs.
The Mexican restaurants must hate the virus as much as the virus loves the Mexican restaurants. What will they do without tomatoes, jalapenos and cilantro, I wonder. And how will I keep from cilantroizing my food?
I am not much of a trend analyst, but even with my limited pattern-finding knowledge, I can say with some certainty that if I were salmonella, I would be targeting corn next. My two cents!
But what is this salmonella? Is it the next bird flu or mad cow? Seeing as it has "salmon" in its name and we have covered the bird and animal species, are we going the aquatic-vertebrate way? I know I know. My humor to ones head is equivalent to salmonella to ones stomach! I hear the strain infecting the jalapeno is called “Salmonella Saintpaul” (!!!) whose genetic fingerprint has been identified in 43 states. I wonder what kind of damage Saintpaul is causing to farmers, what with the FDA gunning for them, and the people running away from their produce. How badly is it impacting them, I wonder. The nation’s tomato industry is said to have lost 100-million dollars and some say it may reach 250 million dollars soon. Yikes!
