mothball smell to whole belly clams

From: Nancy Balcom (balcom@uconnvm.uconn.edu)
Date: Thu Jul 24 2003 - 07:40:14 PDT

  • Next message: George Chang: "Re: mothball smell to whole belly clams"

    HI everyone:

    I was contacted by someone with our state health department who
    was following up on a consumer complaint. The person and a
    companion ordered and ate orders of deep fried, breaded, whole
    belly clams, prepared on site. The person in question ate two that
    tasted (or smelled, perhaps) in his words, like "mothballs" or
    camphor. The rest of his clams, and those of his companion's
    tasted fine. The restaurant has had no other complaints of this
    camphor taste problem. The person did vomit later, but it may have
    been in reaction to the smell, rather than an actual illness. Our
    state shellfish people have never heard of anthing like this and
    neither have I.

    Has anyone ever run across this before or have any ideas of what
    might have caused this smell/taste in the clams?

    As always, thank you for your help.

    Nancy Balcom

    Nancy C. Balcom
    CT Sea Grant Extension Program
    University of Connecticut
    1080 Shennecossett Road
    Groton CT 06340
    Tel: (860) 405-9127
    FAX: (860) 405-9109
    E-mail: nancy.balcom@uconn.edu



    This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Thu Jul 24 2003 - 07:41:25 PDT