The line keeps ringing with people complaining about food at the
Gilroy Garlic Festival.
Red Phone: The line keeps ringing with people complaining about food at the Gilroy Garlic Festival.
“The article in the paper seemed to make a little bit of fun of sick people in the garlic festival. It wasn’t really a funny matter. I got a son and his fiance who got really, really sick. They had to miss work and had to miss sleep. Their two friends also got sick and I’m hearing about many many more. I think this should be taken a little more seriously.”
and …
“Read your article today about the peppersteaks. In my house, there are four of us. My wife didn’t eat one, but my daughter, son and I ate one and we got sick. I found out later on that my son’s two friends who ate peppersteaks also got sick. It wasn’t a day of eating too much or drinking or anything like that. Something was wrong with them this year. We’ve eaten them for the last 15 or 16 years and never had a problem.”
and …
“Way more than a few people got sick after eating the peppersteak on Saturday. Don’t appreciate the comment that it was all chalked up to eating and drinking too much. Doesn’t apply to any of the list of people I know. Since it was a new group cooking peppersteak this year, it needs to be looked into and not brushed off. The incident seemed to be confined to the peppersteak from late Saturday afternoon. A number of those reporting sickness were volunteers.”
Red Phone: Dear Queasy Stomachs, Red Phone didn’t mean to make light of festival–goers’ discomfort. Obviously, something didn’t settle too well with some readers’ stomachs. But what it was remains to be seen. There are many ingredients that go into the food from the garlic to the sauce to the bread to the meat itself. It could have as easily have been caused by a badly buttered batch of bread as a potent piece of peppersteak.
Before we start spreading rumors of a massive outbreak at the festival, we need to recognize that there have only been a handful of cases, informally collected, and that these comprise but a small percentage of those who went to the festival.
So far, we’ve received about a dozen complaints from the 100,000 plus attendees, and there were another dozen comments posted on last week’s Red Phone column. While this is certainly not an exhaustive list of those who got sick, that’s not even .05 percent of the total people attending the festival.
In addition, there were no reported cases of food poisoning at Saint Louise Regional Hospital in Gilroy or Hazel Hawkins Hospital in Hollister. One call we received said that 86 people were checked into Saint Louise with food poisoning. This obvious embellishment has us a little skeptical.
The Garlic Festival tends to lean on the side of caution where food is concerned. About 10 years ago, there was a batch of meat that was thawed and frozen and rethawed. The health department said it would have been fine to serve. But the festival threw it out just to be certain.
In the 31 years in existence, this is the first time the festival has had any complaints like this. You can rest assured that they will be taking a close look at their procedures.
