A food taster is a person who takes the food or drink to be served to someone else to confirm that it is safe to eat and does not contain toxins or poisons. The person to whom the food is going to be served is usually an important person, like an emperor or monarch (all dictators!) who fears being assassinated. In ancient Rome, that task was often given to a slave, whose life is expendable.
Back in 2009, the AFP reported that La Fontaine de Mars, a restaurant in Paris, France, in which Obama and his family had dinner on the night of June 6, 2009, confirmed what waiter Gabriel de Carvalho had said about the POS using a food taster.
De Carvalho said: “They have someone who tastes the dishes. It wasn’t very pleasant for the cooks at first, but the person was very nice and was relaxed, so it all went well.”
The US Secret Service has always refused to confirm that US presidents travel with a food “taster.” Now we have word that Barack Obama has a food taster, but not just when he’s traveling.
Nicholas Ballasy reports for The Daily Caller, March 14, 2o13, that Maine Republican Senator Susan Collins told reporters the POS didn’t eat the scrumptious food at a lunch meeting with Senate Republicans on Capitol Hill because his “taster” was not present.
Collins said Obama had “looked longingly at” the healthy but tasteful lunch of lobster salad, Fox Family Potato Chips, and wild blueberry pie with Maine’s Gifford ice cream, but said he “can’t” eat the lunch: “He looked longingly at it. He honestly did look longingly at it, but apparently he has to have essentially a taster, and I pointed out to him that we were all tasters for him, that if the food had been poisoned all of us would have keeled over so, but he did look longingly at it and he remarked that we have far better food than the Democrats do, and I said that was because I was hosting.”
Uneasy is the head that wears the crown.
The caesars of ancient Rome had slaves as their food tasters. I wonder who’s the poor sucker who’s the food taster for the POS?
~Eowyn