The baker of Hovis bread was fined £750 after a woman in Northern Ireland found part of an oven glove in her toast.

The victim had begun to eat it before she noticed the shreds of hessian-type cloth. Herefordshire-based Hovis makers Premier Foods was fined £750 at Omagh Magistrates' Court, in County Tyrone.

District Judge Greg McCourt imposed the fine and ordered the company to pay court costs of £85 after it had earlier pleaded guilty. A spokesman for Premier Foods said: "We go to great lengths to assure the quality of our great British brands but on this isolated occasion we have fallen short of our usual high standards and apologise for any distress caused to the customer."

This reminds me of passage from a Bill Bryson book, “I'm A Stranger Here Myself”...

Strangely, all this suited my father, who had what might charitably be called rudimentary tastes in food. His palate really only responded to three flavours-salt, ketchup, and burnt. His idea of a truly outstanding meal was a plate that contained something brown and unidentifiable, something green and unidentifiable, and something charred. I am quite sure that if you slow-baked, say, an oven glove and covered it sufficiently with ketchup, he would have declared, after a ruminative moment's chewing, "Hey, this is very tasty."

Young Raymond thought the oven glove was the best bit.

The original was here