LORELAI: What’s going on?
SOOKIE: Uh, chaos? Uh, a travesty of cooking? It’s a salmonella laboratory in here!
Salmonella is a genus of bacteria, named after a veterinary surgeon called Daniel Salmon (1850-1914). Most salmonella infections are caused by eating food contaminated by faeces, so poor hygiene is the usual culprit. They can cause food poisoning, or in more serious cases, typhoid fever.
In fact, Sookie’s food handling is pretty unhygienic anyway – she’s constantly tasting things with her finger dipped in the food, or eating from the spoon then using it to stir food again. In this episode, she goes through the garbage and doesn’t wash her hands. The way food is treated on this show, you’d expect a salmonella outbreak on a weekly basis!
The Annotated Gilmore Girls 