On September 16, 2014, S&S Food Import Corporation recalled all packages of uneviscerated dried roach (Vobla) with the following package code “Best Before 06.05.2015”due to the possibility that the product may be contaminated with Clostridium botulinum spores with can cause botulism.

First, I apologize that it’s taken longer for me to forward this notice to you faithful remnant that subscribe to my twitter account, my Facebook Page, or are connected on LinkedIn. I had to think about this announcement a little bit first. I had to think about whether this announcement was provided for the protection of individuals who might be inclined to purposefully ingest uneviscerated dried roach. I asked myself, “wouldn’t anyone who would eat this be asking for trouble any way?” I had to look it up in dictionary.com to see if it really meant stuff with its guts still inside. I also had to look up “roach” because my mind was going a whole different direction. Here’s what I found out. Yes, according to dictionary.com, “eviscerate” means to remove the entrails from; disembowel. So I would take UN-eviscerated to mean that the guts haven’t been removed. I gathered from the context of the official FDA announcement and the product label photos that “roach” was a fish…not an insect. Again, according to dictionary.com, a roach2 is a European freshwater fish, Rutilus rutilus, of the carp family. All that said, you might be thinking, dummy, why do you think they put “vobla” in parentheses, unless to give you a clue? I hate to admit I had to look that up, too. I learned a lot on this announcement. Vobla according to Wikipedia is a Caspian roach! Oh, yeah. I see. (See Wikipedia for more information on the Caspian roach). I undertook all this research because the announcement referred to Uneviscerated Roach with a capital “U” and “R”, causing me to think that was the product name. Therefore, I was thinking, “Duh, of course the Uneviscerated Roach hasn’t been properly eviscerated prior to processing. No improper labeling going on here! But it turns out, if you read on to the bottom of the FDA announcement you will find a link entitled, “Photo: Product Labels“. If you open that up you actually see where the label indicates that the product is actually something eastern European (I’m guessing) that means “Roach dry eviscerated salted Fish”! Now, I finally understand the importance of this announcement–Botulism is a serious and potentially fatal food-borne illness. People should be careful not to eat this product with the package code, “Best Before 06.05.2015”. Anyone picking this up off the shelf thinking they were getting gutless fish are in for a huge disappointment.

As always, please read the official FDA announcement for more details.