SC - Perspectives on Recipe Adaptation (was: ALCOHOL IN FOOD)

[david friedman]

At 4:41 PM -0500 3/2/00, LadyPDC at aol.com wrote:

>Religious grounds set aside just for a moment.>>>  An effective,
>non-confrontational method of achieving your end goal here would be to state
>that, in addition to mushrooms, you are allergic to the yeasts and cultures
>found in alcoholic beverages.  It is well known that yeasts and cultures stay
>allergenic even after high heat.

Do you really want to recommend lying to people as a way of getting 
what you want?   I don't like the taste of saffron, and am a fairly 
prominent person in the SCA. It is at least possible that, in some 
contexts, if I told the cooks that I was allergic to saffron they 
would be willing to make up a special portion for me without it. 
Should I do that?

Note also that if people falsely claim to have allergies in order to 
get their food the way they want it, whether for reasons of religion 
or taste, cooks are going to become suspicious of such claims. 
Indeed, I already am; while I have no doubt that some people really 
are deathly allergic to some things, I suspect that a considerable 
fraction of such claims are either bogus or greatly exaggerated. If 
cooks become sufficiently suspicious of such claims, they may stop 
bothering to pay attention to them, which could have serious 
consequences when the claims happen to be true.

David/Cariadoc
http://www.best.com/~ddfr/