You’re toast

In Competition No. 2986 you were invited to submit a poem about a deadly foodstuff.
 
My inspiration for this assignment was the appalling news that toast can kill you, which is yet another depressing indication that everything good is bad for you. Or perhaps, as Max Gutmann suggests in the closing couplet of his winning entry, it’s safer simply to regard all food as a potential enemy.
 
Honourable mentions to Mae Scanlan and Jennifer Moore, and £25 each to the winners. D.A. Prince scoops the bonus fiver.
 
Amanita phalloides!

Yes, my darling, just for you —
hunter-gathered when your need is
homely soup to add them to.
 
Fresh and creamy-clean, so wholesome;
don’t they tempt your appetite!
Mushrooms feed your hungry soul; come
this soup is exactly right.
 
Shun the supermarkets’ offering —
carbon footprint, packaged, stale;
these are handmade personal profferings
like the stuff of fairy tale.
 
Not for me, alas — my diet:
but I’d have some if I could.
Still, you’ll love it when you try it.
This will really do you good.
D.A. Prince
 
Some foods are dangerous — e.g.
The pufferfish, fesikh, ackee,
Bullfrogs, blood clams — but none of these
Disgusts like Casu Marzu cheese.
 
Remove a Pecorino crust
And flies swarm in to slake their lust
And lay their eggs and raise their young
Who’ll lace the cheese with maggot dung.
 
The hard-core Casu Mazu buff,
The addict, cannot get enough.
He gladly eats — and never squirms —
Intestine-perforating worms.
 
The Brussels bureaucrats can’t stand it
And, pusillanimous, have banned it,
But anyone can beat the ban
Who knows a man who knows a man.
Basil Ransome-Davies
 
Their restaurant was a cause of strife
For Alice Higgins and her wife,
Since Alice loved to cook, while Honey
Saw their goal as making money.
At last they had a major tiff
And Alice gave her love a biff,
So Honey took a frozen joint
And thumped her back, to make a point.
Alas! Poor Alice took it ill
And broke her head upon the grill.
The newly-widowed Honey gasped
And dropped the brisket she had clasped.