To think my friend got food poisoning from this dinner party and we need to tell the hostess?!

[DustOfALongSleeplessNight]

NC for this so i don't out myself.

Went to dinner party with friend on Sat night, didn't know hosts, they only invited me as I'm visiting friend for week. Lovely house in country, seemed clean and everyone was friendly.
Im pregnant so couldn't eat starter (smoked salmon) and for main I just had potatoes and veg as I didn't fancy the chicken dish. I usually eat chicken but it was in rich sauce (chicken cacciatore) and Im averse to strong flavours when pregnant. It didn't look or smell bad or anything. We ate at 8pm and left at 11pm, my friend was fine when we left. In car on way back she complained she felt bloated and said her stomach felt a bit 'funny', I teased her that she must have overindulged. When we got to her place I made her peppermint tea and she took some Rennies, she didn't feel ill at that point but her stomach was really swollen so she started wondering if she had an allergy/intolerance to something. At 1am she woke up feeling sick then started vomiting (violently) and developed diarrhoea, she spent whole night on loo being sick in a bucket and was ill most of Sunday. Today she's feeling a bit better but she still has bad stomach pain and diarrhoea and is in bed.
I am furious with the hosts! It's obvious to me this is severe food-poisoning and she must have caught it from the chicken dish... or AIBU and jumping to conclusions? Friend ate same as me all week, we cooked together, so can't have caught it elsewhere.
I think we need to phone hostess and tell her, I also want to know if anyone else got ill though friend doesn't have contact details for the other people. I keep thinking it was so lucky i didn't eat it too, as could have put baby at risk, and I'm so angry a host would serve up something unsafe!! What would you do?

Hope that your friend is a bit better today.

I thought you were over reacting in your earlier posts. You sounded too angry. I'm hoping that you were just panicking? I think that it should be mentioned to the hosts by someone, but very calmly. No blame throwing or anger. It wasn't done on purpose, it could have been something they bought in and didn't have to cook, for example the salmon. They will, no doubt, be extremely upset to hear what has happened. Don't make it worse by shouting.

Hope your friend feels better soon. It's entirely possible that this is food poisoning within the time frame you describe.

No matter how safely one handles food, food poisoning can still happen. There's no way to know, if it is food poisoning, that it was the result of unsafe handling.

I didn't say they deliberately gave her food poisoning, just that they shouldn't have served unsafe food at a dinner-party.

What a strange thing to say. Of course they shouldn't, but presumably they didn't know, otherwise they would have been doing it deliberately. That statement makes no sense.

It may not be food poisoning at all but if it is the hosts will find out for themselves soon enough and probably contact their guests anyway. If they don't it can be assumed that no-one else was ill, in which case it probably wasn't the food, or it was just a tiny freak mouthful that only your friend ate in which case no-one could have foreseen it.

I think the fact that you didn't eat the salmon or the chicken suggests you are a bit hysterical and over-anxious about food generally, pregnant or otherwise - am I right?

I would let the hosts know just in case they take ill as well in a "just FYI. X has bacterial food poisoning and was admitted to hospital for dehydration. If you're experiencing symptoms make sure you see a doc. The only place we ate differently was at your house so I think it must have been something she ate there. I wanted to let you to know so you could warn the others that they need to see a doc."

Only last month after a huge family meal cooked at my parents house did I wake up in the middle of the night and was violently sick - which continued throughout the next day too.

We had all stayed over at my parents house that evening (6 people) and I was the only one who had been sick.

It never once crossed my mind to be angry at the person who cooked the food. Why would I be when I 100% know it was not done on purpose?

You need to let it go OP. Shit like this happens, and if it wasn't done with malicious intent then you're just being dramatic.

Smillas - except viruses don't grow in food, do they? They need living hosts to replicate. Of course norovirus, rotavirus etc could be transmitted via food through contact contamination with unwashed hands but that's conceptually different from being poisoned from pathogens growing in the actual food. Infection from those viruses could equally have happened with the table cloth or door handle. And with that sort of infection the hosts would have had to be unwell as well.

My Bil was ill one Xmas. I thought it was my dinner and felt really bad. Alas, it was a bug, as then after that event, days later, everyone else had it.
Your df needs to contact the hosts.

I spent a day with a friend a couple of years ago, we had the same lunch and dinner, both outside the home.

When her husband came to pick her up she started to vomit and then had a fit (she has epilepsy) she ended up in hospital for a few days with gastro enteritis.

Had we not eaten the exact same thing we would have thought food poisoning, in fact we did think that but couldn't work out how she got it and I didn't.

Your description of how your friend is is just how I was with Noro. I have never been so ill. Horrific.

Your poor friend,I hope she's feeling a lot better today.

She's still in hospital, feeling better but her blood pressure's low so they want her to stay in until it's normal. Consultant saw her this morning and asked her to contact others to find out if anyone else is ill. So she rang hostess, who said she and her DH also got ill on Sat night (V+D at 2am) but were both recovered by Monday and thought they'd just had a stomach bug. Hostess was really shocked friend is in hospital. She contacted other guests for us, 4 out of 6 also had V+D Sat night/Sun morning, but are all ok now. One man had no symptoms despite eating same food as everyone else but the woman who was ok hadn't eaten the salmon, so hosts think the salmon might have been off. Apparently they bought it from a deli on the Friday so are going to complain to deli as it was in date and stored in fridge.

Consultant says it's most likely bacterial food poisoning not a virus, though they can't be sure until test results are back.

I know I came across as a bit OTT in original post, I was just really worried about friend, and upset because I'd almost eaten the same food. To the poster who asked if I'm normally 'hysterical' about food safety, no I'm not, the only reason I didn't eat the chicken was the rich sauce, which can make me queasy when pregnant. I didn't eat smoked salmon because my midwife said not to eat any type of raw fish or sushi (risk of parasites/listeria etc).

Smoked salmon isn't raw - it's been smoked

Poor hosts - thank goodness you didn't phone them up and accuse them of purposefully giving everyone food poisoning and make them feel even worse

Smoked salmon is still raw fish... the smoking process cures it but doesn't cook it. I've been advised to avoid it in pregnancy as well. It's high-risk for food poisoning and can contain parasitic worms.

OP I hope your friend gets better soon. I expect the hosts are very embarrassed and upset, and will feel like it's their fault, but if the fish was already contaminated when they bought it they're not to blame.

All nhs advice is that smoked salmon is safe to eat for pregnant women and smoking means that it is not raw.

However neither is it "cooked". It is smoked. That is not the same thing at all. Smoking typically only takes the temperature of the meat/fish up to about 28 degrees.

It is partially preserved though the smoking process but not "cooked".

It's similar to smoked bacon. You wouldn't eat that straight out of the packet and say its cooked. Its raw but it has gone through a preserving process.

We don't eat smoked bacon because it's not "dry" and our current tastes aren't for smoked meat (as opposed to fish) to be "wet" - hence why we would eat Parma ham (I know that's not smoked but it's cured so a good enough example) which is dry but not smoked bacon

In the Middle Ages etc it was quite common to eat smoked bacon without further cooking

I didn't say that smoked salmon was cooked - I said it wasn't raw eg tuna tartare.

And current UK medical advice is that smoked salmon is safe to eat in pregnancy

this book is really interesting re: random food facts!

Hi op - hope your friend is feeling a bit better, food poisoning is never pleasant!

The thread below isn't dinner party host by any chance?? If so could be the reheated chicken! (I know, I know - probably just coincidence but the word 'cacciatore' jumped out at me - don't think I'd ever heard of it before today!)

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/food_and_recipes/2355231-your-best-chicken-cacciatore-receipe-please

Side note: first ever post long time lurker