Michael
By Michael Coy
ONE person has died and 43 have suffered food poisoning after eating montadito de pringá rolls in a bar.
One person has died, but authorities have not yet confirmed conclusively that the pringá was to blame.
In Córdoba, one person has died “but we are not yet able to confirm that this fatality is related to the consumption of food involved in the Córdoba outbreak,” said a spokesman for the Health Department.
The Andalucian Regional Health Department in Córdoba is investigating 44 cases of food poisoning caused by pringá buns that the affected people had consumed in a bar.
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The bar in question has remained closed since the incident happened, earlier this month. Sources from the regional administration have told the press that the “premises have been inspected” and “samples have been taken” of the food sold in the establishment, while “monitoring and surveying” of all the cases detected so far is also being carried out.
It appears that only three of the 44 people who experienced gastro-enteritis went to consult medical authorities. People who had used the bar were interviewed by health inspectors, and those who had suffered stomach and intestine discomfort all had one thing in common – they had all eaten montaditos de pringá.
The authorities fear tha E. Coli and Clostidrium may be the two microbes responsible. These two bacteria can pass to humans when we eat food on which they are living (and they love meat!) or when an infected person touches our food. This last possibility has led Health Inspectors to question everyone who works in the bar and its kitchen. Bacteria double their numbers every 20 minutes. That may not sound very fast, but one single bacterium becomes more than 500 after three hours!
In Spain, the law requires anyone whose work involves the handling of food to take a course on manipulación de alimentos (workers must show that they understand the importance of refrigerating perishable foodstuffs, washing hands, &c.) Any worker who has an open wound (eg, a cut finger) or is suffering a gastric upset is supposed to stay away from the workplace.
Needless to say, this law is not always complied with. Small businesses do not always have substitute staff. Workers cannot afford to lose several days’ wages. Perhaps the biggest factor is tradition itself. Those legs of ham hanging from the ceiling in your local bar have flies walking all over them in summer. Locals will tell you that the ham oozes a layer of fat which ‘seals’ the meat and prevents infection. Maybe. But what is more probable is that people in Andalucía have eaten ham this way for millennia. They like it this way. Similarly, the home-made treat of pringá reminds them of their childhood, and so it’s a popular snack. Home-made foodstuffs, brought into a bar for sale to the public, are very difficult to supervise.
The member of the Córdoba city council with responsibility for Health is María Jesús Botella. She said in a press conference this week that the critical day for the food poisoning was January 4. No-one made any complaint until 13 of this month.
Reading between the lines, (1) the beef remnants may have been lying around since New Year or earlier, and (2) the council offices were closed until January 13, so nobody could lodge a complaint. Señora Botella confirmed that the pringá was home-made: “The food in question was not industrially produced,” she said, “but made in the establishment itself.”
FACUA (the consumer watchdog) issued a statement saying that the Córdoba council needs to identify the bar where this infection occurred, and to inform the public as to how the pringá was made, and what its ingredients were.
WHAT IS “PRINGÁ”?
It’s a taste of Traditional Andalucía. For many families, a joint of meat used to be a rare luxury, so waste not, want not. When the joint of beef was more or less finished, the remnants and the lard were mashed up into a paste (pringá). When this is spread (literally, ‘mounted’) on a bun, you have a montadito de pringá. Many andaluces, nostalgic for their mothers’ recipes, like to order it with their beer. Did your parents use to wax lyrical about beef dripping? Same kind of thing.
