[Sca-cooks] Milk and Nut Allergy Questions...

[Christina Nevin]

> My brother has been lactose intolerant all his life. Milk is bad, but
> ISTR he can handle most cheeses. I don't know how typical this is...

My mother is severely lactose/milk intolerant. If you feed her a dish with a
spoonful of cream in it, she will be in the toilet throwing the meal up
before she's finished it (as she unfortunately did last year at a restaurant
:-(  On the other hand however, she can eat small amounts of non-cooked
cheese and in fact absolutely loves brie. Both my twin and I are mildly milk
intolerant (her worse than me) and we both adore cheese. From what I've seen
most this is actually typical of the milk intolerant. But not of the lactose
intolerant I imagine!

> Are most people who are allergic to walnuts also allergic to almonds? Or
are these very different and separate allergies?

All the people I have met who are allergic to almonds have also been
allergic to other nuts, usually to a lesser degree (though I had one person
who could tolerate Almonds but was virulantly allergic to Brazil nuts, but
that was an unusual exception). Like the milk-intolerant and cheese, those
with MILD nut allergies quite often adore them (especially cashews for some
reason!).
This isn't really something you can take any liberties at all with however,
as Huette says it's a dangerous allergy. If someone tells me they are
allergic to almonds, I always email/phone/contact them and tell them about
the other nuts in the feast - better to be safe than sorry.
For some reason (perhaps because it is a New World plant?) an allergy to
Peanuts seems to be usually singular and also usually lethal. I never use
peanuts, peanut oil or any products that may be contaminated with peanuts in
my feasts as a matter of course. The one person I know with this allergy
however, is rightly picky about what friends he will go to dinner parties
at, and won't eat in restaurants  let alone at an SCA feast, so it's pretty
much a non-starter.

> How common is an allergy to almonds?

I usually get one person per 40 at feasts who is allergic. If you're doing a
feast for, say, 150, and no-one comes up to you to say they're allergic to
nuts, I would worry. I always get a general announcement made in the feast
hall about the fact the feast contains nuts also.

ciao
Lucrezia

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Lady Lucrezia-Isabella di Freccia | mka Tina Nevin
Thamesreach Shire, The Isles, Drachenwald
The Thorngrove Athenaeum  http://www.thorngrove.net
"There is no doubt that great leaders prefer hard drinkers to good
versifiers."
- Aretino, 1536
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