HALF CAR OF BERRIES "OILED".
Food Inspector Uses Kerosene on a
Shipment from Texas
Food inspector Cutler anointed 262 crates of Texas strawberries yesterday with coal oil, to give them that rich, nutty flavor that is so unpopular with hasheries. Reading in the nespapers that the inspector was in wait for a car load of moldy berries, htere was a crowd in the Frisco yards yesterday when Dr. Cutler hove on the scene. They expected he would dump the berries on the ground, and they were ready with their pans and their boxes to sort the rejected fruit and effect some salvage.
Instead of that, Dr. Cutler kept the berries in their crates, and gave the owner of the car till noon to sell the moldy berries, 262 crates out of a shipment of 440 crates, to some vinegar factory. When noon arrived and no sale had been made, the coal oil cans were brought into play.
Although berries are seling from $3.50 to $5 per crate, and there were 200 good crates in the car, the consignee got stampede and sold the lot for $60, not quite half of what the freight on the shipment was.
"Moldy berries are highly dangerous," explained the food inspector after the seizure, "although, it is the mold which makes viengar, and as vinegar the berries would have been all right. However, as fresh berries they would have been good for orders for several physicians and maybe an undertaker or two."
