Tag Archives: Food Taster

The Food Taster: German man suspected of killing 21 co-workers by poisoning their food

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Darko Janjevic of DW reports German authorities launched a probe into a string of deaths at a metal fittings company after an employee was caught trying to poison a co-worker’s lunch. Police found quicksilver, lead and cadmium in the man’s home.

The man was arrested for the incident in the town of Schloß Holte-Stukenbrock, northwest Germany. However, police now suspect he may be responsible for up to 21 deaths of people working for the same company.

The police detained the 56-year-old suspect in May this year, after one of his co-workers noticed an unknown white powder on his food. The would-be victim alerted his superiors and asked them to review the recordings made by security cameras, which then showed the suspect adding the substance to the co-worker’s lunch.

“In the beginning we thought it was a misconceived prank between co-workers, and not a murder attempt,” said Tilo Blechinger, the manager for the metal fittings manufacturer ARI Armaturen, to the DPA news agency.

The case escalated to an attempted murder after authorities identified the powder as lead acetate, a highly toxic and nearly tasteless substance that could cause serious organ damage.

Food taster, Dalai Lama style (it’s all fairytales)

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Amy had a student who used to call me Dr. Richard Gere, because at one point I used to look like him: not so much now.

dalai.lama.richard.gereMaybe if I were a practicing Buddhist I wouldn’t age so much.

I agree with many of the Buddhist philosophies, but the idea that the divine leader is born, not chosen, seems ridiculous.

And their take on microbial food safety really sucks.

The Dalai Lama reportedly used a food taster when he visited Brisbane last month.

In Medieval times, men of power had tasters who valiantly sampled their food in case an enemy tried to poison them.  This practice was built on a myth that survives today – if you get food poisoning, it’s from the last thing you ate, and the symptoms will commence rather immediately.

Several  years ago, Amy and I had the privilege of an after-hours chat with some FDA-types who spoke of the precautions they would take when preparing safe salmon for Laura Bush and any other meal fit for a President. They had thermometers. And knew how to use them.

We had salmon for dinner tonight. It was temped and safe.

Junk science: Vladimir Putin employs a full-time food taster to faithfully ensure his meals aren’t poisoned

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As a genetics student in the early 1980s, we were taught about the silliness of Trorfim Lysenko, who set back Russian agricultural production by hundreds of years.

food.tasterToday’s current Russian leader, Vladamir Putin, wants to go further back to the dark ages, and apparently has a professional food taster on his full-time staff.

Adolf Hitler was a vegetarian, but didn’t take any chances that some assassin might toxify his favourite dish of asparagus, peppers and cauliflower. A woman called Margot Woelk was brought a plate of food to test, at noon every morning of his last two years alive. If she didn’t fall ill, the food was packed up in cartons and delivered to his military HQ.

Food tasters have been used for thousands of years to sorta protect those in power from the many poisons out there. Doesn’t work so well with microorganisms like Listeria that may take six weeks to incubate, but other procedures have been developed.

There’s recurrent stories of U.S. Presidential food tasters, that are always denied, but the Food and Drug Administration does takes an active role in food prep for the President.

There are plenty of bacteria that would take days to develop into symptoms.

Nice science, Vlad.

Hitler’s former food-taster tells all

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Peter Elbling has lead what seems an interesting and varied live. A founder of the Times Square Two, a frequent guest of TV shows like Taxi and WKRP in Cincinnati, and the co-author of what would become the movie, Honey I Blew Up the Kid.

In 2003, he published his first novel, The Food Taster, telling the story of Ugo DiFonte and his teenaged daughter Miranda as they are Margot Woelk.hitler.food.tastersnatched from their farm and spirited away to Duke Federico Basillione DiVincelli’s estate. Ugo thinks life can’t get any worse…until he is forced to replace the recently de-tongued royal food taster. Now Ugo must stay alive–a difficult prospect considering the prince’s myriad of enemies and their poisons–to protect Miranda from her suitors and desires, and somehow hold the unruly court together.

I’ve read about half the book.

Food tasters have been used for thousands of years to sorta protect those in power from the many poisons out there. Doesn’t work so well with microorganisms like Listeria that may take six weeks to incubate, but other procedures have been developed.

There’s recurrent stories of U.S. Presidential food tasters, that are always denied, but the Food and Drug Administration does takes an food.taster.book.active role in food prep for the President, and especially at large political gatherings.

Maybe one of the worst jobs was as the food taster for Adolph Hitler.

Margot Woelk was one of fifteen girls who spent two-and-a-half years testing Adolf Hitler’s all-veggie diet to make sure it wasn’t poisoned, telling Stars and Stripes, “The food was delicious, only the best vegetables, asparagus, bell peppers, everything you can imagine. And always with a side of rice or pasta. But this constant fear — we knew of all those poisoning rumors and could never enjoy the food. Every day we feared it was going to be our last meal.”

In bad taste

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As a follow-up to yesterday’s post about The Food Taster, bites.ksu.edu French correspondent Albert Amgar sent along this story from Le Monde, and French professor Amy translated.

In the Parisian restaurant La Fontaine de mars, where Obama ate dinner on Saturday evening, the cooks were stunned: an American secret service member tasted the dishes before they were served to the President of the United States. Nonetheless, this is a precautionary method as old as the earth, even predating Nero and Cleopatra. Who would dare get offended? God save Obama!

A food sampler (male or female) must have excellent taste buds and a certain taste for danger. But his job is really not to be a food taster. He has no right to give his opinion about the menu, the cooking method or preparation of a dish.

The only thing expected of him is to verify the innocuousness of the food destined for the presidential palace. After having brought the spoon to his mouth, a disapproving pout would have a disastrous result. The disgusted look of a food sampler would be in bad taste.

Why limit such precautions to food? While less sudden, some poisons are as dangerous as arsenic or rat poison. There are innumerable heads of state, deprived of efficient food samplers, who were politically killed by an excessive appetite for power.

The Food Taster

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I’ve been working my way through Peter Elbling’s 2003 novel The Food Taster, for about a year. It’s sorta always there but I just can’t get that excited about the main character, Ugo, and his struggle to survive as he tastes countless dishes to protect a much loathed but important 16th Century Italian Duke (Federico). 

Amy has written while at this point in history simply having food was a luxury, the formerly starving peasant, Ugo, learns that he can no longer enjoy his food. Although now an expert at identifying ingredients and seasonings (right up there with today’s top food pornographers) he is constantly afraid of being struck by a mystical potion.  His backwards, yet perhaps scientifically accurate, strategy is to slowly expose himself to all sorts of potions and poisons to build up (immuno) resistance should he actually be struck.

The N.Y. Times reported in 2006 that Saddam Hussein once sentenced his elder son, Uday, to be executed after he beat Mr. Hussein’s food taster to death in front of scores of horrified party guests, but later rescinded the order.

In Medieval times men of power had tasters who valiantly sampled their food in case an enemy tried to poison them.  This practice was built on a myth that survives today – if you get food poisoning, it’s from the last thing you ate, and the symptoms will commence rather immediately. 

Last week, reports surfaced that U.S. President Obama had his own food taster present to sample dinner in a French restaurant. Not so, said Presidential spokesthingy Robert Gibbs, but a Secret Service dude may have been watching things.

I hope so. Most people, including chefs, know nothing about food safety. A couple of years ago, Amy and I had the privilege of an after-hours chat with some FDA-types who spoke of the precautions they would take when preparing safe salmon for Laura Bush and any other meal fit for a President. They had thermometers. And knew how to use them.