You have commented 358 times on Rantburg.

Your Name
Your e-mail (optional)
Website (optional)
My Original Nic        Pic-a-Nic        Sorry. Comments have been closed on this article.
Bold Italic Underline Strike Bullet Blockquote Small Big Link Squish Foto Photo
Submit your comments on this article
-Short Attention Span Theater-
Rotten mackerel set off explosion
2005-01-24
I dunno if this is a true story or not. Sounds pretty fishy to me...
Some workers at a warehouse in Fredrikstad had a mess on their hands last week, after a production mistake caused 1,650 cans of mackerel in tomato sauce to literally explode.
"Øøps."
Authorities are floundering for an explanation...
More than a thousand of these exploded in a warehouse in Fredrikstad, creating a mackerel mess. Canned mackerel filets in tomato sauce are a dietary staple for many Norwegians. While part of the national heritage, the product is also fondly ridiculed at times and nicknamed "plane crash" because of the silvery fish's appearance in the red sauce when opened.
Ürk.
Food producer Stabburet always uses a heating technique in the canning process to help preserve the fish, but somehow, the 1,650 cans that blew up missed out. That meant the fish started rotting in the cans, which in turn set off gases that caused the cans to swell until they eventually burst. "It was a highly unfortunate accident," Robert Rønning of Stabburet told VG.
Whatever happened to the highly-trouted Norwegian safety procedures they're always carping about?
Posted by:Seafarious

#56  You've scrod to be kidding me. Is this thing still going?! I thought we'd shad enough. Seafarious has spawned a whopper of a thread... but you should have seen the one that got away!
Posted by: BH   2005-01-24 11:27:38 PM  

#55  What I want to know is, do Norwegian fish-canners work for scale?
Posted by: Pappy   2005-01-24 10:31:41 PM  

#54  Nah, there's blennie more where that came from.
Posted by: Dave D.   2005-01-24 10:02:26 PM  

#53  Ima back. Isa this tail fin yet?
Posted by: Tom   2005-01-24 9:51:17 PM  

#52  Guess I'll let you skate this time, cingold...
Posted by: Dave D.   2005-01-24 9:06:24 PM  

#51  Y’all are a bunch of verbal barracudas. I better scallop off, and get back to my bottom feeding. ; )
Posted by: cingold   2005-01-24 8:56:35 PM  

#50  Way to go, Frankie Baby; you're the bream of the crop...
Posted by: Dave D.   2005-01-24 8:54:04 PM  

#49  er...wahoos :-)
Posted by: Frank G   2005-01-24 8:51:58 PM  

#48  buncha yahoos
Posted by: Frank G   2005-01-24 8:51:36 PM  

#47  You don't even know what a bullhead is, and you're getting on our case for acting like bullheads???? What a boiled sprat...
Posted by: Dave D.   2005-01-24 8:46:59 PM  

#46  But . . . I don't even know what a bullhead is . . . : )
Posted by: cingold   2005-01-24 8:37:43 PM  

#45  ya home. soon as as ima can mussel my way outta here. gotta see my fren saman him wife.

a litle dab will do ya on em bullheads cingold
Posted by: muck4doo   2005-01-24 8:35:39 PM  

#44  Heh... I guess I shad of known better, huh?
Posted by: Dave D.   2005-01-24 8:35:36 PM  

#43  A wrasse will be here later. [Didn't think I'd see it, did you! Am still hangin around for a few more minnows.]
Posted by: Tom   2005-01-24 8:31:25 PM  

#42  So your lox held out? Never had trouble like this so as to have to mullet?

This seems so cutthroat, to perch above these peoples’ misfortune, and act like bullheads.

Have you no sole?
Posted by: cingold   2005-01-24 8:31:08 PM  

#41  Goin' some plaice, mucky?
Posted by: Dave D.   2005-01-24 8:23:23 PM  

#40  ima gotta get offn my perch here ina bit to
Posted by: muck4doo   2005-01-24 8:21:53 PM  

#39  Good Cod, are you leaving already? What a wrasse...
Posted by: Dave D.   2005-01-24 8:21:46 PM  

#38  Okay, walleye gotta go now anyway.
Posted by: Tom   2005-01-24 8:20:21 PM  

#37  thisn not funny
Posted by: Shamu   2005-01-24 8:15:57 PM  

#36  What the hake, let's keep it going, eh?
Posted by: Dave D.   2005-01-24 8:15:24 PM  

#35  itn okay. ima tuna this thred to late
Posted by: muck4doo   2005-01-24 8:13:24 PM  

#34  If AR15 sees this, eel have to do a squid pun.
Posted by: Tom   2005-01-24 8:00:50 PM  

#33  This is fun, even if there's no porpoise to it...
Posted by: Dave D.   2005-01-24 7:44:56 PM  

#32  ima think this ina great grouper people!
Posted by: sorry, mucky...   2005-01-24 7:42:17 PM  

#31  Obviously it's all over but for the carping
Posted by: Frank G   2005-01-24 7:41:04 PM  

#30  "damn - 26 comments with bad puns and I missed it..."

Well, don't let it stick in your craw, Dad; it's no big deal.
Posted by: Dave D.   2005-01-24 7:37:50 PM  

#29  I'll have to trout the canned mackerel. Can't say I've haddock before.
Posted by: Tom   2005-01-24 7:33:38 PM  

#28  great minds think alike, eh?

Findeed it seems they do, Rex.

Frank - the thread's not Dover sole yet. I'm already regretting trying to krill it. You dive in. I dolphin it's too late.
Posted by: Bulldog   2005-01-24 7:07:14 PM  

#27  damn - 26 comments with bad puns and I missed it...
Posted by: Frank G   2005-01-24 7:00:38 PM  

#26  Curses Bulldog....great minds think alike, eh?
Posted by: Rex Mundi   2005-01-24 6:47:22 PM  

#25  Fin.
Posted by: Rex Mundi   2005-01-24 6:45:02 PM  

#24  This is one for the classics--a real trophy bass of a thread--a teriffic line of argument that will fly forever in our memories.
Posted by: Mike   2005-01-24 6:35:45 PM  

#23  May I do the honours?

Fin.
Posted by: Bulldog   2005-01-24 6:29:52 PM  

#22  It was just a fluke...
Posted by: OldeForce   2005-01-24 6:13:26 PM  

#21  All in all, a pretty crappie thread. Whale done, everybody!
Posted by: BH   2005-01-24 6:04:13 PM  

#20  Maybe I'd just better clam up, now...
Posted by: Sgt. Mom   2005-01-24 5:56:02 PM  

#19  That one really smelt, Sgt. Mom.
Posted by: BH   2005-01-24 5:12:55 PM  

#18  Speak up, I think he's hard of herring!
Posted by: Sgt. Mom   2005-01-24 4:58:55 PM  

#17  "Then . . . you must cut down the mightiest thread in Rantburg wiiiith--a herring!"
Posted by: Mike   2005-01-24 4:44:36 PM  

#16  It was Lew Zealand, with the boomerang fish on the Muppet Show, DB.
Posted by: Sgt. Mom   2005-01-24 4:02:38 PM  

#15  I miss Marvin Suggs and his Boomerang Fish Act from the Muppet Show. I think he used mackerels as well. They didn't explode, though.
Posted by: Deacon Blues   2005-01-24 3:32:01 PM  

#14  Does an exploding mackrel rise to the level that will cause Dave Barry to come out of retirement?
Posted by: eLarson   2005-01-24 2:48:25 PM  

#13  Oh. A tin of fish.

I thought the headline referred to Mikey Moore bombing someone. ;-p
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut   2005-01-24 2:00:52 PM  

#12  I've haddock with this thread!
Posted by: Pappy   2005-01-24 1:31:44 PM  

#11  Yukkk. What a mess. Well, there's work to be done, so just throw a tarpon it and get goin'.
Posted by: Dave D.   2005-01-24 10:19:53 AM  

#10  BH: indeed. The net is full of this sort of crab.
Posted by: Bulldog   2005-01-24 10:17:47 AM  

#9  Pretty bad puns there, chum.
Posted by: BH   2005-01-24 10:13:19 AM  

#8  It sounds like an urban legend that became bait for a gullible and gillty press, who swallowed it hook, line, and sinker. Get reel, guys!
Posted by: Mike   2005-01-24 10:04:33 AM  

#7  I had a can of chipotle chiles explode once. It was very messy as well.
Posted by: Deacon Blues   2005-01-24 7:35:56 AM  

#6  Ladies and gentlemen, we have here the world's first successful tesing of the terrifying new biological weapon known as the TMBBB (Tinned Mackerel-Born Botulinum Bomb). Hithertofore existing only as wild speculation in the fevered minds of non-conventional weapons specialists, the TMBBB was believed to be too unstable and unpredictable for practical use.. It now appears that the Norwegian military, in collaboration with the white coats and sou-westers of Stabburet's Gubbins, Pilchards 'n' Biowarfare of Fredrikstad, have overcome the formerly-considered insurmountable obstacles to harnessing the awesome power of oily fish, ketchup and anaerobic bacteria. Temptingly tasty yet capable of spreading biotoxins with deadly efficiency over a wide area, the TMBBB is indisputably the acme of culinary and bioweapons technology synthesis.

It's not yet known whether the Norwegians intend to use the new fiendish addition to their military arsenal to blackmail the world, or merely as a so-called Doomsday Device with whch to fend off EU neighbours greedily eyeing Norway's fish stocks having disastrously mismanaged their own.
Posted by: Beavis   2005-01-24 7:08:01 AM  

#5  Yeah, I'd buy a couple of cans, just for the halibut.
Posted by: Sgt. Mom   2005-01-24 6:36:08 AM  

#4  IMO, it is just a ploy to insure a rise in mackerel purchases by ROPers.
Posted by: gromgorru   2005-01-24 3:04:19 AM  

#3  "High-trouted."
"Floundering."

You guys are on form today.
And I'm not being sardinic....er.. I mean, sardonic.

Posted by: Bryan   2005-01-24 2:04:42 AM  

#2  HOLY EXPLODING MACKEREL Batman! Thats one fine kettle of fish!
Posted by: CrazyFool   2005-01-24 12:34:29 AM  

#1  I sent the story off to UrbanLegends@about.com for examination. I'll check their site later to see what they have to say.
Posted by: trailing wife   2005-01-24 12:26:43 AM  

00:00