Salmonella Tennessee’s high school yearbook portraitYesterday, the FDA put out one of its characteristically cheerful press releases regarding the recall of about a bazillion products containing hydrolyzed vegetable protein (HVP) over concerns that they were tainted with Salmonella Tennessee–which is a variant (or stereotype) form of Salmonella, the same kind that caused the Great Peanut Butter Scare of 2006, and not the worst blues singer name ever.The U.S. Food and Drug Administration is taking steps to protect the public following the early identification of Salmonella Tennessee in one company’s supply of hydrolyzed vegetable protein (HVP), read yesterday’s release. This is a common ingredient used most frequently as a flavor enhancer in many processed foods, including soups, sauces, chilis, stews, hot dogs, gravies, seasoned snack foods, dips and dressings…Salmonella is an organism that can cause serious and sometimes fatal infections in young children, frail or elderly people, and others with weakened immune systems. Healthy people infected with Salmonella often experience fever, diarrhea (which may be blood), nausea,vomiting, and abdominal pain. Most healthy people recover from Salmonella infections within four to seven days without treatment. In rare circumstances, infection with Salmonella can result in the organism getting into the bloodstream and producing more severe illnesses, such as arterial infections (infected aneurysms), infection of the lining of the heart, and arthritis.The company responsible for all this nausea, vomiting and heart lining infecting? Basic Food Flavors Inc. out of Las Vegas, Nevada–a city famous for being the source of all manner of infections, though not generally Salmonella. Basic Food Flavors has been quietly manufacturing HVP since 1980–providing the flavoring agent to all sorts of food companies. And while up until yesterday, probably nobody outside the dip, gravy and snack food manufacturing communities had ever even heard of the company, now it is all over the news–which just goes to show what getting on the front page of the Food Poison Journal will do for you.Since HVP is such a common food additive, the list of recalled products is fairly enormous. But locally, it’s affecting Tim’s Cascade Style Potato Chips (a company operating in Washington, but owned by Birds Eye Foods), specifically the Sweet Maui Onion chips and onion rings, Johnny’s Fine Foods (located in Tacoma) which has recalled all of its French Dip powdered au jus, and Reser’s Fine Foods (out of Beaverton, Oregon) which has voluntarily pulled a bunch of its dips, dressings and potatoes from the shelves. Trader Joe’s has also recalled some vegetarian products manufactured by Earth Island out of California, and the list just seems to be growing.For full details (and a fairly exhaustive list of all possible recalled products), check out either the FDA’s product recall list, or foodsafety.gov which is keeping a running tally on companies that are voluntarily pulling their products from stores.