More times than I can count. I've travelled a lot over the years. Quite often to the kinds of places people know about only from documentaries. Bulgaria, Turkey, Romania, Greece, Thailand, Singapore, UAE, Ghana, Ivory Coast, Mali, and lots of other countries. I've managed to catch something or other from food in many of these places.
Usually, it's not that terrible, if thoroughly unpleasant: a bout of vomiting, diarrhoea, fever, etc. Normally, it's over after about three days. Each and every time, I got the infection by eating things that all travel guides tell you not to eat. Such as chicken giblets from a street vendor in Ghana, seafood from a street vendor in Thailand, and so on.
Despite that, I wouldn't ever change anything. I've made experiences (and not just culinary ones) by doing what normal people don't do, and I'm the richer for it.
I caught the absolute worst infection of my life in Singapore. I was there for a week, teaching a bunch of engineers. On the Thursday of that week, they told me that they'd like to take me out for dinner and asked me what I would like to eat. I told them that I would like to eat whatever it is that they would like to eat, because I don't go to another country only to eat the same stuff as I eat at home.
They treated me to a lavish dinner at a very expensive and exclusive waterfront restaurant. There was plenty of food (mostly seafood), and the coup de grâce was a giant chilli crab, which was awesome. Afterwards, we found a street vendor and had some durian before heading home.
That night, about three hours later, I woke up, vomited, and had severe diarrhoea. Because I had another full day of teaching to do, I dragged myself to work in the morning and taught a class the entire day, running a 39+ ºC temperature. Then, at about 7 pm, I made my way to the airport to fly back to Brisbane.
The flight takes about ten hours. About a third of the time, I was sitting in my seat and getting soaked by my own sweat, running a very high temperature, and being thoroughly miserable. The second third of the time, I spent with chills and shivering convulsively. The remainder of the time I spent on the toilet, occasionally switching ends from which to empty myself…
When we finally arrived in Brisbane, I was going through a hot phase. When I fronted up at immigration, I could barely stand straight, and I had so much sweat running down my forehead that I had to wipe myself every few seconds. The immigration officer took one look and obviously decided that "this guy is really nervous about something or other", despite me explaining that I was really sick.
So, very politely and methodically, immigration officers took apart every last bit of my luggage and did a body search. All the while I wished I could die. It took them well over an hour until they finally let me go.
I went directly to a doctor, straight from the airport. They gave me some aspirin and collected a stool sample. The next morning, they called me back and told me that I had cryptosporidium. It's a parasite that is really quite nasty. The treatment wasn't antibiotics. Instead, they went straight to sulphonamides.
I got better within five days, but it took months to really get over the lingering weakness. And that was when I was thirty years younger.
And, still, I'd do it again. That chilli crab was out of this world…