Photo-Illustration: by The Cut; Photos: Getty Images
Earlier this month, Tina Knowles made her culinary debut, launching Mama Tina’s Gumbo as a food stall at the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo. The pop-up sparked a lot of excitement among rodeogoers, who lined up for a taste of Beyoncé’s mom’s famous gumbo. Unfortunately, it sounds like one gumbo connoisseur didn’t have a great time — after eating Knowles’s gumbo on March 16, a customer told the Houston Health Department they had chills, fever, and nausea and were “throwing up blood,” according to KPRC 2 News.
In a statement to The Cut, the health department said it ordered the food stall to temporarily close on March 16 after receiving the complaint but reauthorized it to open the following day. “The vendor was cooperative with the department’s recommendations and passed a subsequent inspection,” the department said.
Per KPRC 2 News, food inspectors who were sent in after the customer called raised a number of concerns about how the stall was preparing its food. Apparently, the gumbo was cooked off-site, then cooled down and transported in non-food-grade orange buckets to a freezer at an unlicensed location. The buckets of gumbo were then supposedly brought to a refrigerated trailer at the rodeo, where they were stored and then thawed before being served to customers. On top of all that, Mama Tina’s Gumbo apparently didn’t maintain temperature logs showing the cooling or storing time of the gumbo, and health inspectors reportedly “observed bags of frozen shrimp and crab with a label that stated ‘keep frozen’” that had thawed out. It seems all of the thawed food had to be discarded as a result of numerous health concerns, including that there was “no date marking for food prepared more than 24 hours prior.”
Fortunately, it sounds like Mama Tina’s Gumbo addressed all these concerns quickly — inspectors reportedly educated stall operators on methods for rapid cooling, thawing, and date-marking, and they were apparently “very cooperative” and agreed to stop preparing food off-site. The next day, per the department’s statement to The Cut, the stall passed a pre-opening inspection and got right back to serving gumbo.
It sounds like that one unlucky customer was an isolated case — no one else who tried the gumbo appears to have gotten sick. As for the reviews, they’re … not terrible? One woman on TikTok said it was “good, but it’s not great,” while another reviewer said the gumbo was “nothing spectacular” and was pretty light on the crab for $25 a cup. Whatever compelled all these Texans to eat soup in 80-degree heat, it seems like a lot of them were most excited to meet Mamayoncé herself, who was apparently in the stall doling out selfies and hugs on at least a few of the rodeo days. One person on Reddit, who said she was “no gumbo expert” but found it to be “flavorful,” reported that Knowles complimented her skin. Sounds worth it to me — I’ll take an orange non-food-grade bucketful to go.
Stay in touch.
The latest in style, self, culture, and power in your inbox.
Vox Media, LLC Terms and Privacy Notice
Related
