A fowl gift that left a foul taste

Delhi Belly, Montezuma’s Revenge, Holiday Tummy… Very exotic names for something that, in its severest form can kill the sufferer. Yes, on holiday, we are advised to drink only bottled water, avoid ice made with tap water and steer clear from street food. Eat only those fruits that can be peeled. Be sure that all foods you eat are thoroughly cooked and served steaming hot. Never eat raw or undercooked meat or seafood. But the great majority of food poisonings and there are many varieties, can happen at home. 

I was only 17 when I nearly died from extreme food intoxication.At boarding school, while we went home mainly at holiday time, some of us managed to get away for the weekend and usually come back laden with goodies, from new clothes to home-cooked food.

One weekend in June, a friend of mine who was also a neighbour, had gone home, coming back on Monday morning before the first class. On the following Friday, before breakfast, he offered me a piece of the chicken his mother had lovingly cooked for him. He had kept it safely in his locker. Anyone who has headed for the Mediterranean in June, knows most certainly that temperatures can easily hit the thirties. The chicken smelt a little strong but I assumed it was due to the fragrant spices his mother had used. After the usual breakfast of milky coffee, toast and marmalade, I began feeling sick. I reluctantly went to my first lesson of the day, which happened to be P.E. 
Halfway through a warm-up jog, I started being violently sick. The usually unsympathetic teacher realised that I was not pretending to skip the lesson and immediately sent me to the infirmary where the nurse gave me some medication. By midday, after a few hours of feeling like I’d been put through the ringer, my chemistry teacher, the only free person with a car, took me to hospital. While I was being put on a drip, the male nurse said that if I had waited one hour longer, I would have been a goner. Twenty-four hours later, after gallons of saline and various other intravenous medicines, I was declared out of danger and sent back to the school. As I walked through the entrance hall, the neighbour who had generously shared his mother’s chicken, sheepishly apologised for almost killing me. I had lost one whole stone overnight. Great diet, but a tad drastic, if you ask me. I could do with a dose of that, right now. 

Since that incident, I have been extremely careful when handling food, especially chicken. Having had food poisoning once made me very meticulous when preparing food during my restaurant years. Anything suspicious went straight in the bin as I knew what it felt like to be plucked from the jaws of death.

Despite my extreme care in food handling, I nearly died this past January after probably pricking my thumb with a raw chicken bone. Within twenty-four hours, I had sepsis and spent a week in hospital being pumped up with antibiotics. 

It is imperative to wash one’s hands thoroughly to avoid cross-contamination during food preparation, reheat food beyond 74°C and generally be careful