ABSTRACT
There was a panic about food poisoning, and specifically about two types of bacterial poisoning the incidence of which allegedly had been increasing alarmingly: salmonella poisoning caused by the strain Salmonella enteritidis phage type 4, apparently newly discovered to be present in eggs; and listeriosis, a flu-like illness caused by Listeria monocytogenes, a bacterium occurring widely in the environment and found in pre-cooked and chilled food, and some cheeses. This chapter describes the styles of hysteria. It shows how to answer the by-no-means simple questions, what are the texts about? And what is the subject-matter of this discursive excess? The chapter explores the participants and chronology of the affair. For lay people, and presumably for journalists too, the salmonella affair and its relatives were highly mysterious in every aspect: experts were needed to explain the bacteriology, the medical effects, the alleged causes in the food industry and the scale of the ‘epidemic’.
