SC - hiding ingredients

[Mordonna22 at aol.com]

In a message dated 3/2/2000 10:26:12 AM US Mountain Standard Time, 
margaret at Health.State.OK.US writes:

<< 
 > I am interested in knowing how those people that have dietary restrictions
 > (either voluntary or medical) deal with food service in the mundane world?
 > 
 > 
    I ask if any of the items I am allergic to are in the dish or dishes
 being served. In restaurants I ask my waitperson. In catered situations I
 will speak to the head of the caterers. In friends homes, if I wasn't in the
 kitchen while things were being prepared I ask the cook. On those rare
 occasions when the waitperson doesn't volunteer to check and does the duh
 thing my husband growls and they go scurrying of and come back with an
 answer. In this day of litigation most business people are more than happy
 to tell me. If I can't find out I just wait to eat somewhere else. Margarite
 
 >                                                                       >>

This sounds ultimately sensible to me.  Lots better than expecting a poor 
feast cook to try to allow for all the dietary restrictions (physical, 
religious, or otherwise) of a hundred or so unsorted individuals, whether she 
is aware of them or not.
In my own SCA Household I cook for about twenty adults, and an equal number 
of kids under twelve on occasion.  I know them quite well, and try to be 
sensitive to the extent that I try to provide some dishes that each can eat, 
but even in this limited context, it isn't possible to do perfectly.  
For instance, the Lord of my Household loves freshly baked bread.  I prepared 
freshly baked rye loaf with carraway seed only to find out from his wife at 
the last minute that he was "allergic" to carraway.  When he came to table, I 
apologized profusely, only to have him tell me he wasn't really allergic, 
just didn't like the taste in most things. He liked the bread so much, he ate 
half a loaf.  
We have a child in our House who has several birth defects that (among other 
things) affect her dietary restrictions.  She is a nightmare to cook for if 
you know her restrictions, but her Mother takes her to every feast, and 
brings munchies she can handle just in case there is nothing on the menu her 
system can handle.  She DOES NOT expect a feast steward to prepare a feast 
for several hundred people with her daughter's weird requirements in mind.  
She DOES expect to be told the exact ingredients and preparation of the foods 
she is served.

Mordonna the Cook,
SunDragon's Western Reaches
Atenveldt
(m.k.a. Buckeye, AZ)