EmilyNot the actual tooth in question.
Once upon a time, like, last August, in a town in Kent, England, Lauren Gooch opened a package of pork and chive bangers (British for “sausages”), intending to make sausage rolls for a birthday party. (Are sausage rolls a big birthday party food? This is perhaps a conversation for another time). As you would expect, Gooch did find sausage inside the package, but she found something additional and, more importantly, disgusting: a human tooth. And not just a human tooth, but a human tooth with a filling in it. Yeah.
Teeth are just gross in general and this is a particularly gross tooth, what with having a filling and showing up randomly in bangers. Gooch reportedly couldn’t eat sausage for a month. Wow. Maybe this is the boost I need for my adventures in vegetarianism. Anybody have a spare tooth?
Naturally neither Gooch nor her fiance Tony Hinds were pleased about this, and they let the supermarket chain where they bought the sausage, Tesco, hear about it. (To add insult to injury, the sausage was from Tesco’s “premium” range.) If you think the rest of this story is about how Tesco tried to give them “we’re sorry about finding a human tooth” coupons and how the Hinds-Gooches were all “We’re not taking a 15-pound coupon as compensation for being that grossed out,” you are right.
So far the matter has not been resolved. Back in September, Tesco wrote a note apologizing about there being “a piece of bone” in the sausage. (They insist metal could never get past their elaborate sausage screening process.) But “bone” implies that it was just some tough but ultimately harmless bit of animal, and man, this thing is a tooth. It just is. So the Hinds-Gooches either put a tooth in their sausage hoping they could sue Tesco blind, or there was in fact a tooth there. It’s not that the tooth they found is actually a bone, because it’s a tooth. It’s a tooth, guys.
I guess there is a third option, which is that this story was entirely made up by the Daily Mail, which is reportedly not above that sort of thing. But no matter what really happened, this story will help those of us who aspire to vegetarianism along the road to never being able to look at sausage ever again. So thanks, Tesco or Hinds-Gooches or British tabloid publishing! Thanks, and BLEEEEEAAAARGGHHHHH.
