The Pizza Of Death

Would you like arachnid with that?

We may have some strange dietary habits in New Zealand but none stranger than what has been dubbed by the media, the Pizza of Death.

Rotten corn is a Maori delicacy and 'Mountain Oysters' are sheep's testicles in disguise, which are eaten with great gusto in the rural hinterlands of many countries including this one.

The aforementioned pizza is a different matter entirely when is comes to sustenance.  The newspaper report states that:

A Domino's customer dubbed his takeaway the "Pizza of Death" after finding a poisonous white-tailed spider hiding in the box.

The Palmerston North man said his brother found the spider under the fold of the box after eating a slice of Meatlovers.

There are two varieties of white tail spiders in New Zealand and both are Australian imports and venomous.

Domino's New Zealand general manager gave the customer an apology, a refund and a free pizza.

The spider is be sent for testing to see if it had gone through the pizza oven.

Not only does Australia export it poisonous fauna it also has to deal with pig-eating mice. A South Australian pig farmer has spoken of a plague of mice so ravenous that they are eating his prize stock.

In desperation he has resorted to a home made remedy to rid his farm of the plague.

"I mix icing sugar and cement. The icing sugar attracts the mice, they eat it and then the cement clogs them up."

The answer to both of the above problems is quite simple; broaden the mice's diet to include spiders.  Once they get a taste for these they will forgo the pork and New Zealand pizzas will be once again fit to consume.