SC - allergies

[Mark Harris]

Some of the recent messages about allergies have reminded me of
something that I wanted to bring up that might not be obvious to
some of the new cooks here.

For some people the allergy is not to the food itself but to a
specific oil in the food. For instance, I have a friend who is
allergic to the oil in green pepper. While he can ask a
resturant to not make a pizza with green peppers, he will still
have an allergy attack if the pizza is cut with a knife that
had previously been used to cut green peppers.

I wonder if something like this could be a partial  explanation 
for some of the kosher and other religous food laws that require
seperation of different utensils.

So people trying to prepare allergy-free meal items might also
want to be cautious of the utensils they use to prepare the
item. This problem might also occur with someone allergic to
onions, garlic and similar items.

Hopefully the person with the allergies will think to bring this
point up but it might be good to keep this in mind so you can
ask if they don't mention it.

Stefan li Rous