SC - Re Food Allergies

[Terry Nutter]

Hi, Katerine here, with a mundane tale of surprise, if not precisely woe.
When I was a kid, my mother had a meal that was her staple "company
dinner".  It consisted of shrip creole over white rice, fresh asparagus,
avocado and grapefruit salad, and strawberries in orange juice.  She
understood that shrimp, onion, tomatoes, bell peppers, asparagus, 
avocado, grapefruit, strawberries, and oranges are all relatively
common allergens.  So she always had on hand sliced roast beef for
anyone who couldn't eat the shrimp, something else in the way of a
veg for those who couldn't eat the salad, asparagus, or both, and
turnovers for those who couldn't handle the dessert.

She served this dinner regularly for a good fifteen years or so.  In
all that time, she only had one guest who was allergic to anything in
it.

The white rice.  He could eat all the rest, but not the rice.

Moral: if you try to avoid every allergen, you will serve no food.  There
are *no* safe foods.

Every time I cook, I post outside the kitchen door a complete list of all
the ingredients of every dish (including getting local bakeries to give
me a complete ingredient list for any breads I don't bake), and do my
best to see that its existence is publicized.  I try also to respect
requests -- but when I'm cooking for hundreds, I may not have anything
to set aside separate "uncontaminated" servings *in*, let alone the
time to make sure that that's done.

None of this is to say that you should reproduce my mother's menu when
feeding hundreds.  It's wisest to vary the menu, and to have at least
several good dishes that contain no common allergens -- but for sanity's
sake, I think we have to respect the word "common" in that sentence.

I have a few allergies myself.  I consider myself responsible for dealing
with them.  They're mine, after all, not some other cook's.

Cheers,

- -- Katerine/Terry