The Great Hummus Shortage

[ffutures]

Some time in the eighties or nineties (don't know the exact date) a factory in (I think) one of the Scandenavian countries had some sort of fire or explosion, halting pretty much all industrial production of hummus outside the Middle East. As a result there was a global hummus shortage for several months.

Can anyone find me the details of this - exactly when and where it happened etc.? It doesn't seem to be googleable easily.

Comments

[karohemd.livejournal.com]

How bizarre.
And randomly, I'm going to have falafel and hummus for lunch. ;o)

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

I know someone told me about this - I just can't pin down who it was etc.

And the context of thinking of it, of course, was the Oz thing about attacking the Mayor with hummus.

[karohemd.livejournal.com]

Now that would be a great connection for a ficlet. :o)

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

Oh, and have a nice lunch!

[pengshui-master.livejournal.com]

No idea. You're best best might be a newspaper archives search for which you may need a real library. The 1980s after all predate the popular internet. The event may even predate clari.net (some describe it as the first ever .com) which is relevant as they were the first internet news service.

Are the old editions of any broadsheets available online at all - even if it through a paywall?

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

No idea - unless I can pin it down a bit I don't think there's much point paying money for a search!

[dreamerjules.livejournal.com]

There's an LJ community called little_details that is set up to answer odd writer questions - what does the inside of a 19th century insane asylum look like - things like that. They may have the information you're looking for.

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

Thanks!

[dreamerjules.livejournal.com]

You're welcome.

[norwegianne.livejournal.com]

Tried searching it in Norwegian newspapers prior to 1999 - but the first mention of hummus came in 1992 there, and not including factories.

[chuk-g.livejournal.com]

Searched in papers & journals from 1980 to 2000 with various search terms including 'shortage', 'factory', and 'explosion', and turned up nothing obviously relevant.

[missmurchison.livejournal.com]

Scandinavian hummus? That sounds like a joke all by itself.

I never heard of this, but about a year ago there was a Bitters shortage, causing much anguish to cocktail lovers. I think the problem was actually that the factory where they bought the bottles went out of business and they had to get a new supplier.