Asparagus sauce killed diner: coroner

11:00 AEST Mon Jun 30 2008
By ninemsn staff

A coroner has found that a man who died hours after eating at an award-winning Sydney restaurant was killed by an asparagus sauce with lethally high levels of bacteria.

William Hodgins, 81, suffered severe stomach pains and vomiting after dining at Tables with his wife on January 12 last year.

She found his body lying on their bathroom floor the next morning.

A NSW Food Authority investigation found presence of the toxic vegetable pathogen bacillus cereus at almost ten times the toxic level in the cream-based asparagus sauce that Mr Hodgins ate with his serving of snapper, the Sydney Morning Herald reported on March 27.

Pathogen levels of 1 million parts per 10 million parts in any food is toxic but tests on the asparagus sauce revealed 9.8 million parts per 10 million parts, the inquest heard.

A food inspector told the inquest the sauce was "repeatedly subjected to temperature abuse in that it was heated and cooled a number of times over 48 hours by restaurant staff," the Herald reported.

The bacteria pathogen thrives when the food is heated and cooled over a period of time, the inspector said.

Australian food standards require asparagus sauce to be disposed of if it is exposed to room temperature for two hours or more.

Restaurant owners Daniel Brukarz and Kim De Laive insisted they were unaware of these standards but said Tables kitchen staff always disposed of asparagus sauce exposed to room temperature for more than four hours.

Police located seven of the 14 patrons who dined on snapper at Tables on the night of January 12. Two of them reported experiencing a bad reaction: one suffered a rash and the second vomited that night.

Tables, at Pymble on Sydney's Upper North Shore, has featured in the Herald's Good Food Guide for the past eight years and has won two Chefs Hat awards in that time.



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Wow....................