Don’t want to eat at any of their restaurants; 413 sick; chefs say curry leaves not to blame for Salmonella outbreak

A report released by health officials this week concluded that raw curry leaves were the source of the outbreak at the Street Spice Festival in Newcastle in February and March.

However, Dinesh Rawlley, former executive chef and owner of Newcastle Indian restaurant Sachins, and top TV chef Cyrus Todiwala have imagesquestioned the report’s conclusions

“I find this very hard to believe. I’ve been cooking with Indian spices for more than 30 years and I’ve never once heard of curry leaves causing salmonella. In my view, it is impossible. 

“The curry leaves used at the Street Spice Festival would have been imported from abroad and were almost certainly part of a large shipment. 
“If they were contaminated, then surely there would have been similar incidences of food poisoning in other parts of the country.” 

Celebrity TV chef and apparent microbiological sleuth Cyrus Todiwala, who owns London’s acclaimed  Café Spice Namasté, agreed.  

Mr Todiwala, who was awarded the OBE in 2009 and appears on TV shows such as Saturday Kitchen and Market Kitchen said: “I’m not a scientist, but it’s my understanding that salmonella affects protein. How can it survive on a leaf?”

Easy.

And in my initial report on the paper, I erroneously said I hadn’t reported on it before; the outbreaks sorta all meld into one.

380 now sick with Salmonella from UK Street Spice festival

Visitors to a Tyneside food festival at the center of a food poisoning probe are being urged to take part in an online survey to identify the source.

BBC News reports more than 380 visitors to the three-day Street Spice event reported symptoms including diarrhea and abdominal pain.

Salmonella has now been found in 14 samples submitted for testing.

The Health Protection Agency (HPA) is urging all visitors to fill in the survey to vomit.salmsay where they ate so the source can be traced.

A spokesman for the HPA said, “A total of three vendors are highlighted in this questionnaire.

“We would not expect illness to be associated with all vendors but it is important to ascertain as much information as we can about each of them.”

An estimated 12,000 people attended the event, which took place in Times Square between 28 February and 2 March.