SC:allergies and cooks was:Re: SC - Clarification-long

[Anne-Marie Rousseau]

hey ho from Anne-Marie
Phlip sez good stuff. i like her enzyme analogies (and may swipe them next
time I need to explain such things to school kids!)

Though it is possible to induce histimine release upon initial exposure (by
definition is this truely an allergy? I dunno. There are no Macrophages
involved to present the antigen to the mast cell...but we are discussing a
fine point), her main point of "not everything is an allergy" is entirely
correct, and one of my personal little soapboxes.

The sad part is that folks with strong dislikes or intolerances often HAVE
to call it an allergy to be taken seriously by well meaning cooks. So, boys
and girls, may I request that if someone doesnt like something, you just
let them not like it?

I'm guilty of this too..."what? you dont like turnips? But you havent had
MY turnips!" I usually ask that folks try just a taste, and if they still
dont like it, myfeelings wont be hurt. Its just that often tastes may
change and one day you find that you DO like dill pickles after all, you
just dont like the icky ones they put on hamburgers. But I digress...

And heres the bit that's pertinent to this list....

As cooks we have the responsibility to provide food edible to the biggest
portion of our audience that we can. We have allergics and we have food
weenies and we have food snobs (like me! :)), and we can cater to all if we
just take care to do a few things....
1. post the ingredients so folks can check for themselves, and dont go
changing them at the last minute. Given the choice I will often check out
the menu before I buy my ticket.  
2. encourage your feast goers to ask questions. I often will go to the
kitchen and ask a head cook if there's walnuts in ANYTHING. She'll usually
know if somebody got hit with a bolt of creativity at the last minute and
put them in even though they're not on the recipe.
3. dont put any one ingredient in every dish. This makes sense from a
culinary standpoint as well...you wnat a balance of contrasting flavors,
not a meal hwere everything tastes like poudre douce, or a dish where
everything is swimming in butter. If you make suer that there's something
for vegetarians in every course too (ie sub in veggie broth where you can),
they'll be happy.

you cant please everybody every time. But with a bit of careful planning,
you can plese the majority of folks. and that's what its all about anyway,
right?

- --AM
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