Everyone Moved On, But I’m Still Thinking About Beyonce’s Mom’s Gumbo Booth That Made People Vomit Blood
The day was March 24th, almost three months ago (74 days to be exact). To this day, I lie awake at night, running over the details in my head.
Photo: Getty Images CelebritiesSaturday Night Social Tina Knowles
As a Woman In Blogging™, I’ve had a lot of forgettable tabloid headlines cross my desk day to day. However, every once in a blue moon, a stellar bit of tabloid reporting moves me to tears.
The day was March 24th, almost three months ago (74 days to be exact). To this day, I lie awake at night, running over the details in my head: The tragic tale of Beyoncé’s mom’s gumbo booth. It was TMZ, yes, I said TMZ, who implanted the story in my psyche with the headline: TINA KNOWLES’ RODEO GUMBO TRUCK REPORTEDLY CLOSED AFTER CUSTOMER VOMITED BLOOD.” Move aside, Ronan Farrow; this is what real investigative journalism looks like.
For the uncultured, Tina Knowles is the mother of Beyoncé and Solange, and apparently a 74-year-old part-time gumbo entrepreneur. Ahead of this year’s Houston Rodeo, which took place in late March, Knowles announced her rodeo activation, Mama Tina’s Gumbo Booth, where she would serve up her special gumbo recipe all week. The booth would serve as a testing ground for a possible larger business venture, but what she didn’t know was that it would also serve as a breeding ground for whatever bacteria makes people vomit blood.
TW: GROSS.
The blood in the gumbo vomit was most likely due to severe food poisoning. According to the Cleveland Clinic, “severe, forceful, or prolonged vomiting irritates or tears the lining of the esophagus,” resulting in blood in the vomit, which can either look “bright red or dark brown like coffee grounds.” (Sorry for the mental image.) This means that the food poisoning people got from the seafood gumbo was so f*cking bad that they tore the lining of their esophaguses trying to get every last drop out of their system.
After the complaints, the Houston Health Department issued a temporary closure of the booth. Details from the health inspection were obtained by a local news station, which revealed that the gumbo was cooked off-site and “stuffed into non-food-grade orange buckets and then hauled off to a freezer at an unlicensed spot.” Additionally, the ingredients were not properly dated, and the seafood was improperly thawed.
After conducting some investigative research of my own (typing “Beyoncé’s mom gumbo” into the search bar on the Instagram Explore page), I found mostly iffy customer reviews. A big gripe was that the gumbo was 25 goddamn dollars (plus tax), and one customer didn’t even get shrimp in her serving.
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Try your best not to imagine these innocent souls vomiting up blood.
The booth reopened the next day after passing another inspection, but alas, it was too late. No amount of positive reviews could save Knowles from the PR nightmare. The rodeo was soon over. The cowboys wrangled their cattle, Tina closed the lid on her reheated beef sausage, chicken, shrimp, and blue crab gumbo, and everyone skipped town. But I am still here.
Quick, Tina, we need to pivot from this bloody vomit. And pivot she did. Two words: Celebrity. Memoir.
In April, Knowles released her memoir, Matriarch: A Memoir, which is already a New York Times #1 Bestseller, the proud owner of the coveted Oprah’s Book Club stamp, and now available in paperback! She also got blurbed by Michelle Obama, who wrote, “A beautiful and brave story of strong women, fierce mothering, and the power of continued evolution.”
Reader, I need to get my hands on that memoir. I need to know if she talks about the gumbo.
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