I love Christmas. I have at least 25 Christmas trees in my home and celebrate for approximately 3 months. As I sit here writing this blog, I still have two trees to take down and it’s February. I am sad when the last one leaves the house. December is a fun and festive time and we have many parties…big partes, small parties and family parties. This year we had 10-20 people in our home from Dec. 14 through Jan. 8. It was such a wonderful time of friends, family and celebration. On Jan. 10, I received a call that could have changed everything!

The phone rang, and it was from one of my favorite warehouse centers. I thought it was odd and, as usual, I was on an airplane heading to a meat plant to do research, so I didn’t answer. When I landed, I listened to the message from my favorite warehouse store, and I was shocked to hear that the “charcuterie meats” I purchased from their store in December had been recalled. A wave of terror came over me thinking about all of the times I served these meats during the holiday season. I didn’t just purchase one package of these meats, or even two or three. I estimate over the course of the holiday season we purchased and consumed at least 20 packages of these meats. Each year I have a big party for my students and the faculty at Texas Tech. There were at least 100 people there this year. If you follow me on social media, you saw a large (6-foot-long) charcuterie table mostly made up of meats with a brie Santa with a pepperoni Santa hat on it. The table was a big hit and was decimated by the end of the evening.

Throughout the season, I continued to rely on the staple charcuterie board for smaller gatherings of friends and family. Suffice it to say that virtually every important person in my life, friends, family, students and colleagues ate from this table. First and foremost, no one reported an illness. If we did have some illnesses and we started an internal investigation, I am sure that the first culprit would not have been the charcuterie meats. I would have certainly blamed it on a potluck dish that someone else brought (ha ha). Also, if we had narrowed it down to the charcuterie table, I think we would have blamed the brie before the meats. Additionally, our first thought would not have been Salmonella, but rather Staph or Listeria.

I am thankful and grateful that no one got sick, but there are illnesses from this outbeak and it is serious. One thing that I always say is, “Bacteria don’t behave." My former major advisor, Stan Gilliland, used to say that the bacteria “don’t read the textbook” and thus don’t know the expectations of what they should do. We have to stay alert and diligent in mitigating our risks or a holiday party could turn into a disaster.

Why did others get sick and those who celebrated with me didn’t? I have a few theories. First of all, there probably wasn’t any Salmonella in our product. It is not going to be equally distributed and entire lots must be recalled for a margin of safety. Also, if there was Salmonella present, it was probably at low levels with few cells present. There is a dose-response and in most cases one must consume a large amount to get sick. Finally, maybe, just maybe, the thought that alcohol kills pathogens might be true … we did serve ample amounts of the signature cocktail, cranberry margaritas (with sparkles).

For whatever reason, we are still healthy, but want to keep all of those around us safe so keep working to keep the food supply safe. You never know when it might impact your own family!

Marked Safe from the Salmonella Charcuterie Outbreak

Join for free* to continue reading.