SC - Allergy rant - was garlic in British Isles

[Philip & Susan Troy]

> Date: Fri, 8 May 1998 00:05:38 EDT
> From: LrdRas <LrdRas at aol.com>
> Subject: Re: SC - garlic in British Isles
> 
> In a message dated 5/7/98 9:09:57 AM Eastern Daylight Time,
> mtraber at email.msn.com writes:
> 
> << However, keep in mind that some of us have allergies to such frequently
> used items that when we read the ingredient list, we find that we have paid
> for a feast we can't eat>>
> 
> Contacting the feastocrat before hand eliminates this problem entirely.

Hear hear! For the feast I worked on last weekend (and Lord Ras was
there, and probably witnessed some of the incidents I'll talk about!) we
sold out the onboard spaces, and, as of a week before the event, I had
received two (2) inquiries on behalf of two individuals with allergy
problems. The event notice in our Kingdom and local newsletters clearly
listed my name and contact information for exactly that reason. On the
Thursday before the event, I posted an e-mailed plea for anyone who
hadn't yet contacted me about allergies to do so or forever hold his
peace, as the saying goes. This should have helped with some of the
people who didn't get the newsletter in any form (although how they
found out the rest of the information necessary to attend the event I
couldn't say), just as the newsletter should have covered people without
telecommunicatons access. Less than 36 hours before the beginning of the
event I received three more inquiries (I had already anticipated some of
these allergy and other health problems in my menu, spreading them
around somewhat, and providing a completely plain roast beef as a backup
meat, so almost no one would go hungry unless they were allergic to food
in general.)  Then we posted a complete ingredients list, in addition to
the recipes and documentation posted on this list earlier in the week.
In short, we did everything within reason, and more, to accomodate those
with food allergies and other restrictions, and we _still_ had people
expecting to have a personal consultation with me at 5:50 PM about all
their health problems, including those not food-related. The worst was
the young guy who came to me with a question (_not_ health related, but
intended to address the guy's distrust of unfamiliar foods), who was
then pointed at the posted written info and instructed to use his eyes
and brain, and was back five minutes later with another, even more
inane, question. On the third occasion I told him the next dish I'd be
serving him would be his own, still-beating, heart, in red sauce. 

> <<Hear, hear! Do you know how many products have either  tropical oils >>
> 
> I use lard, chicken fat, and olive oil and occasionally canola which is rape
> seed oil.  (from a form of mustard plant). Oh, and emu fat when available. :-)
> 
> <<or mushrooms/mushroom extract in them?  >>
> 
> Mushrooms are used on their own. Not as an ingredient. In fact I am hard
> presssed to be able to find any period recipe where they are an ingredient as
> opposed to a flavoring.

Do you mean, an ingredient as opposed to a main food, Lord Ras? I can
think of two European mushrooms dishes, and in both cases mushrooms are
more or less the main ingredient, and so hard to miss.
> 
> So far as "bouillion is concerned, I am unaware that there was such asn item
> in period let alone the Middle Ages. The bottom line , I use FRESH ingredients
> , no preprocesssed stuff and present a wide enough variety of dishes so that
> the most an "allergic" person would miss is one or two dishes. OTH, checking
> inadvance of mailing your reservations is the best course of action.

Or reading the posted ingredients list. Aaarggh. Foam. Snarl.
 
> I have only had one person have a reaction tany of my feast dishes and that
> person was allergic to lentils. His parents did not call ahead of time; the
> lentils were listed on the menu, the parents chose to serve it to the child
> anyway. And, NO ONE has ever elft my feasts hungry in the last 11 yrs. The
> point> Persons with medically verifiable conditions should call ahead of time.
> This eliminates any problems before they occur. Upon arrival at the site check
> ingredients lists and menu items .

Yup. I nailed one person once, too, as far as I know, and her reaction
was to something pretty unusual. Saffron, I think.
 
> Cooks should produce a varied menu and avoid modern  "convenience" products
> totally.

Well, in a perfect world, I'd agree. Sometimes we need to buy emergency
supplies which we may or may not need. For example, I still have the
unopened tub of chicken stock base (the low-sodium stuff you have to
refrigerate) which I bought just in case. As it happens our real chicken
stock was quite good, and didn't need any artificial kick. Even our
rabbits that needed to be cooked in good broth turned out just fine when
cooked in water and wine (I'd been planning to add some reduced chicken
stock if the final product wasn't brothy enough).  

I have one last question, just out of curiosity: what's the percentage
of people who will personally comment on the allergies they actually
have, as opposed to those of friends, or friends of friends? I myself am
allergic to vanilla, shellfish, and peanuts, all of which I occasionally
eat anyway, with very minimal problems. I really don't mean to sound
unsympathetic, but it seems odd that so many accounts of food allergies
in the SCA tend to begin with the words, "I have a friend who...", and
relatively few which begin with, "I am allergic to..."

As it happens, 99% of the actual allergy-related inquiries I _did_
receive about Crown Tourney had to do with foods I wasn't serving,
although I did receive some rather open criticism for serving a dish
with almond milk, from someone who wasn't personally allergic to nuts of
any kind. No one else commented on it.

I hate to say it, but I suspect the simple fact is that there are a lot
of attention-starved hypochondriacs out there, mixed in with the people
genuinely suffering from food allergies, and that in the case of such
people, there's no pleasing them.

Adamantius 
______________________________________
Phil & Susan Troy
troy at asan.com
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