A French couple's "toothsome" lunchtime discovery

A gentle warning before you read any further, especially if you're just about to sit down to eat.

The following tale might put you off your grub.

(from Wikipedia, author Rainer Z)

That's certainly the effect it had on a couple in the western French town of Guérande on the coast of Brittany

Retired policeman Jean-Paul Dosset and his wife Claudine, had defrosted some chipolatas and put them on the grill to share with family and friends for lunch on Monday.

And all was well until, as the regional daily Ouest France reports, Claudine bit into one of the sausages and discovered of all things...a tooth.

Well to be precise it was a post crown; not exactly the most appetising accompaniment to the meal and one which, not surprisingly really, rather put the couple and their guests off their food.

"There were chipolatas, steak haché (mince) and chips on the menu," 61-year old Dosset said on Laurent Ruquier's daily round-table radio show "On va s’gêner" on Europe 1

"We're a large family and we didn't know how many people would be coming to lunch," he continued.

"My wife took a mouthful of chipolata and felt something hard, first of all thinking it was a bone.

"But after she discovered what it was, that was curtains for the main course and we went straight to the dessert - a yoghurt."

Their cat ate the rest of the sausages and lunch on Tuesday was fish.

The manufacturer of the chipolata, Défial Normival, is more than a little non-plussed about how the offending tooth apparently managed to make its way inside the sausage in the first place, as the director of quality control, Cédric Loyer told Ouest France the day after the story first hit the headlines

"The meat passes through several processes of cutting and mincing," he told the paper.

"It's impossible that the tooth managed to get through without being detected or being marked in any way."

The Dossets don't intend to ask for compensation, but they still have the tooth and have written a letter to Défial Normival, repeating their story.

Meanwhile the company is reportedly waiting for a "complete analysis" before making any further comment.

This latest "toothsome" discovery comes just a month after a couple from the western city of Angers found a post crown - complete with root - in their lunchtime steak haché.

As the French say, "Bon appetit".