SC - rare foods at feasts-rant

[Decker, Terry D.]

My wife has an allergy to commercial curry powders which can be life
threatening.  A friend of ours, who knows of the allergy, was doing the
feast.  Margaret checked with her to determine if there was anything in the
feast which might cause her a problem and was assured everything was fine.
At the last minute to add a little bite to the cucumber-dill soup, the cook
used commercial curry powder and did not mention the fact to my wife.
Fortunately, Margaret caught on to the curry powder with the first bite and
stopped.

My wife took personal responsibility.  The cook knew the ingredients.  But
the casual, last minute "cook by taste" led to adding an ingredient not on
the list.

I cook by taste, but for feasts, once I have the recipe set, I don't step
outside the ingredients in the recipe.

Bear

 And it would seem odd to me to not be 
> able to alter
> ingredients as I needed and as I go along ('course I was 
> taught to cook by
> a mother, a grandmother, a father and a stepmother who all added
> *everything* "to taste" and almost never measured anything 
> that they knew
> how to cook in advance).  Of course, I'm a big one for personal
> responsibility too, so I expect anyone with a food allergy to take
> responsibility for finding out what is in what they are 
> eating and I do
> believe that the cook should always have that information 
> readily handy to
> be disbursed as well.  And I do also see that having 
> information for what
> you're serving available to the populace ahead of time as being a good
> thing.
> 
> I remain, in service to Meridies,
> Lady Celia des L'archier