SC - was mushroom allergies & food hygene rant

[Lorix]

Ron and Laurene Wells wrote:

> >Adamantius commented:
> >> ...you might
> >> be better off with a bean dish, which is probably less likely to cause
> >> allergic reactions than mushrooms, statistically (I think!).
> >
> >Really? I remember cautions here on allergies to fava beans, particularly
> >allergies among folks of southern European descent. I don't remember any
> >comments about mushroom allergies. I thought some just didn't like them.
> >(like my wife).
> >
> >More details please.
> >
>
> It is true that there are a goodly number of people who are allergic to
> mushrooms.  Since they are a fungus, and many people are allergic to
> various forms of fungi (molds, mildews, etc.) some are also allergid to
> mushrooms.  This does not mean that EVERYONE who is allergic to mold is
> allergic to mushrooms, certainly not. But the potential is there.

>snip

There are a number of people that I know who are violently allergic to
mushrooms.  Their allergy is extremely severe, that food not containing
mushrooms, but prepared using unwashed utensils (by that I mean a chopping board
used to prepare other vegetables & chopping mushrooms) can make them violently
ill.  They are that sensitive to the mushrooms & consequent swelling in throat,
mouth etc can cut off breathing.

I saw what happened to a lady who had told the feastocrat she was allergic to
mushrooms & was presented with dishes assured to be mushroom free, but the
vegetables had all been chopped on the same chopping board . . . ;-(

When I am cooking, I am very careful about the perils of cross-contamination
particularly when I am cooking for others.  I make sure that all utensils are
washed between the preparation of each dish so that I can assure my feasters
that each course has only the ingredients that I have cooked in it.

<rant mode on>

On a related note, food hygiene is something that many people don't seem to
think about.  It is amazing how many people will come into a kitchen and offer
to help & don't wash their hands before wanting to start helping . . . it's got
to a sort of joke status when I am cooking now because there is a chorus from
all in the kitchen when someone walks in to "wash their hands".

I vividly remember one feast I attended several years ago as a wayfarer.  As is
my won't I wandered down to the kitchen to offer my assistance & after one
horrified look inside abstained from eating most of the feast.  That was at the
first remove when I saw the state of the kitchen, I didn't truly realise how bad
it was till later when I had the 'pleasure' of cleaning the same kitchen, (it
was the practice in that group that if you cooked, you didn't clean).

This kitchen had a lovely large stainless steel bench that ran right down the
middle of the kitchen for food preparation.  It had various cupboards & benches
all around the sides of the kitchen, 2 big steel washing sinks, an industrial
dishwasher & an insinkerator.

Preparation for the feast had obviously commenced at one end of the preparation
bench & continued down the bench with each new course, judging from the food
debris.
There was vegetable peelings (and other 'waste' food parts) in little piles all
along the bench & piled all over the floor.  In certain sections of the kitchen
people appeared to have seated themselves to prepare the food & let the food
peelings fall onto the floor rather than the bins available (and I mean mounds
of peelings).

Every conceivable space was stacked with dirty serving platters or food
preparation utensils.  It was obvious that stuff had dripped off the discarded
platters onto the benches & that rather than cleaning the surfaces, food had
been chopped in amongst the mess.  At the end of the feast, I had succumbed to
the succulent strawberries served hulled with bowls of cream.  When I saw the
kitchen, I truly wished I hadn't.  Legs of lamb had been served as the meat, but
appeared to have been frozen when they went into the oven, because whilst burnt
on the outside, where uncooked past 2cm in the meat & hard/cold against the
bone.  There had obviously been attempts made to carve the roasts at one end of
the metal serving bench.  Because the floor was slightly slanted, so was the
bench.  The meat had been cut directly onto the bench & blood had pooled & run
down the center of the bench to the other end & the dripped off onto the floor.
What was extremely distressing was that the strawberries had obviously (the
debris was there & so was the cut marks on the bench & in the dried blood) been
hulled in amongst the blood.

I mention this only insofar as it is not enough that we consider food allergies,
but we also need to consider food hygiene, cross-contamination issues, length of
time food is left refrigerated, dangers of re-heating food & not heating it
enough to kill bacteria.  Food poisoning might have been period, but we _really_
don't want to recreate it in the current middle ages.

<rant mode now off>
Lorix