There’s A Worm In My Salmon!

Yes, a worm. I purchased a large piece of fresh salmon from Harris Teeter on Capitol Hill and as I was cleaning it I noticed something that looked like a vein or small piece of string. Well, I usually wash my meat very good before cooking it and have never seen a vein in salmon before. As I laid the fish on my baking sheet, I began to pull the vein out and low and behold it started to move. YUCK! It was a tiny worm! Can you believe it. I was immediately sick. I placed the fish in a plastic freezer bag and packed the boys in the car and went straight to Harris Teeter. I talked to the manager on duty and showed him my specimen. I explained to him how upsetting this was.  He also looked sick. He apologized profusely and told me that their policy when someone returns something that is bad is to give them a refund of double the amount that they paid. Yeah, right.  He also encouraged me to purchase something else to eat from the store which would be on the house.  I really didn’t want anything from that store, but I went to the frozen food section and puchased veggies.

The next day, I ran into a friend of mine who, ironically, used to work at Harris Teeter in Pentagon Row, Arlington, VA, and I told him my salmon story. He said he was not surprised at all, in fact he has seen fresh meat fall to the floor and be put in the case. Double Yuck! [I still won't buy fresh fish or poultry at Harris Teeter.] He also said that the grocery stores use the shopping carts to empty the trash from the store. So basically, the carts that we use to place our food in are being used to haul out all of the nasty trash from the back of the store. I thought, well maybe that’s just Harris Teeter, but later in the week, I went to Safeway on Alabama Ave., SE, Washington, DC, and the woman at the Starbucks counter sure enough got one of the grocery carts and loaded the nasty Starbucks trash bag into the cart.

What’s the take home message:
a) wash your meat well; very well
b) wipe off your boxes and containers before putting them in your refrigerator
c) pray

Image credits:  Salmon. Originally uploaded by This Year’s Love