SC - accommodating at feasts

[Bronwynmgn at aol.com]

As an example of having enough variety in a feast to cover most allergy 
questions:
   At the feast I cooked Saturday for my shire, we had a regular attendee 
(not from our shire) who is allergic to glutens.  This rules out most grains 
or anything made from them, including white vinegar.  I didn't know she was 
coming until about a week ahead, but I also know that she brings her own food 
just in case, and doesn't get upset if she can't eat the feast.  The menu 
that I had prepared months ahead of time, without knowing she was coming, 
allowed her to eat: boiled chicken with hard-boiled egg garnish (the sauce, 
containing both bread and white vinegar, was served on the side); salad with 
dressing, and the insides of the open face mushroom tart (at least she told 
me on the phone that she could do that) in the first course; and roast pork 
(neither sauce for it, however, but again they were served on the side), rice 
cooked in almond milk, makke ( a bean paste dish), and peascoddes in the 
second course.  In other words, out of an 8 dish feast, she was able to eat 
at least part of every dish except one, the losyns ( a pasta dish).  On 
several occasions she came to me to doublecheck items that she wasn't sure 
she could identify from the table menu/ingredients list - ie, which sauce was 
which.  I didn't have a problem with that; she checked once for each course, 
when I was already out in the serving area supervising the servers and 
accessible over a low counter to the populace.
  I had one other lady who is allergic to mushrooms.  She also called ahead 
of time, but the only dish containing mushrooms was the mushroom tart.  There 
were several vegetarians present; they could eat all the dishes except for 
the two meat dishes and the sauces for them.  One dish contained wine, so our 
recovering alcoholic simply gave that one a miss, as did the lady allergic to 
alcohol.  There were even three items that I believe would have suited 
vegans; the salad, the bean paste, and the rice - and I could have made them 
a serving of peascoddes without butter if they had requested it (but as far 
as I know there weren't any vegans there).  
  I wasn't deliberately thinking about accomodating all of these different 
people when I created the menu - I simply looked for a large variety of foods 
and tried to make sure that no single ingredient appeared in too many of 
them.  All right, I did consciously make three out of four dishes in each 
course vegetarian friendly, but we have several vegetarians in our shire.
Brangwayna Morgan
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