Alfalfa Sprout Recall: 76 Sick, Brother Wendell Boils Soup

Friends, an alfalfa sprout recall is spreading through the realm, and 76 people across 16 provinces have now taken ill after eating the little green fuzz. The Potion & Provisions Authority and the Disease Council say the trouble traces back to nine hundred and fifty pounds of sprouting seed sold by Barleyn Seeds of Millersburrow, in Ohyo Vale.

The old herbals have always been a bit wary of anything grown warm, wet, and in the dark for a week. Sprouts are exactly that: a spa for seeds, and apparently for a bloody-flux sprite and a belly pox called Agona. The new studies agree with the herbals, which is rare enough that I wrote it on the temple wall.

Here is what the Authority found. A supplier traced the seed to a grower whose sprouts were already under investigation. A sample of spent soak-water from one lot tested positive for the sprite. The seed went out between the second week of Frostfall's cousin, February, and late August, in quarter-pound pouches up to fifty-pound sacks, to forty-two provinces. The big sacks carry lot code SAL2-24JB, bottom right corner of the label. The small pouches carry nothing at all, which I find unkind.

Symptoms run from cramps and sickness to the bloody sort, and in the worst cases the kidneys give out. Little ones, elders, and anyone whose humors are already poorly should take extra care. If you ate the sprouts and feel wretched, see a healer. Do not wait it out with a heroic attitude.

The Authority's advice is plain. Do not sprout it, plant it, sell it, or give it to a neighbor. Seal it in a bag and throw it out. Scrub every jar, tray, and countertop it touched. Barleyn Seeds says its other products are fine and is offering refunds, though I would not blame anyone for glaring at the whole shelf for a while.

A woman called Odalie Pennywort, a market-stall greengrocer in the Lower City, told me she had a window-sill of sprouts going for a month. 'They looked so healthy,' she said. 'Then I read the notice and gave the jar a funeral.' A good funeral, I told her. She had the right of it.

I have been at this a while, and the lesson never changes: the things that look the healthiest on the plate are often the ones nobody has cooked. Heat is the oldest remedy we have. It is also why I keep going on about the pot. (Last month it was the dairy cows. Before that, the storm. Something is always sprouting.) My friend Nyx tells me there is a gadget that grows sprouts on a schedule with a glowing app. Go outside, Nyx.

Today's soup is a simple cabbage-and-white-bean with plenty of garlic, boiled hard. Cooked greens are safe greens. No sprouts required, and your kidneys will thank you.

Rest well, friends. — Brother Wendell