Death, Allergies, and Waiters
I came across this article yesterday: “A bite of salmon put him in a coma – the waiter was arrested” and related to it immediately. (Link to article: http://www.newser.com/story/229177/a-bite-of-salmon-put-him-in-a-coma-the-waiter-was-arrested.html) My husband suffers from a severe olive (and olive oil) allergy. As you can imagine, it is quite rare and very difficult to deal with at restaurants. Many breads, sauces, cooking surfaces, and much more use olive oil, and it is often overlooked.
While we come across many wait staff that are very accommodating and take the time to talk to us and the chefs, we often experience the opposite. Wait staff that could care less, have “more important” things going on, and obviously are not planning to let the chef know. In these situations, my husband orders a “safe” food, something he knows would not have olive oil, and then normally we do not return to that restaurant.
But what happens when we can’t read the situation correctly? How can we tell the difference between a restaurant that will cook on a separate surface, ensure any bread or spread or sauce they are giving my husband doesn’t have olive oil, and just overall care about the fact that he has an allergy?
Here are a few tips:
- Expense: The higher end a restaurant, the better they are at dealing with allergies (normally). However, in my husband’s case, the less expensive restaurants tend to use far less olive oil.
- Disney: They are top notch when it comes to allergies. When you mention an allergy, their policy is to send the chef to your table, every time.
- Chains: Large chain restaurants tend to be better because they have policies established that blanket all of their locations.
- Local eateries: Unfortunately, as these are normally our favorite places to try, small local restaurants are hit and miss. Either they happen to have a good policy or a waiter or waitress that cares or they don’t. If you have a severe allergy, you may want to call ahead to see how they handle allergies and always be willing to walk out if need be.
If this is something you struggle with, you may want to check out this website before you head out for your next dinner: https://www.allergyeats.com/
Happy eating!
I live in Greece and obviously here olive oil is EVERYWHERE. Now I have never heard of olive (or olive oil) allergy - although it could be a thing. I would be curious to know whether organically cultivated olives/oil produce the same effect.
That is why my husband could never go to the Mediterranean! Yes, it's really rare but is all olive oil - he tried organic at the beginning when he wasn't so allergic. The majority of cases are people that are allergic to the pollen (seasonal allergies). The cases like my husband are extremely rare. For more info: http://www.livestrong.com/article/234473-olive-allergy-symptoms/
Yeah olive pollen is pretty seasonal and obviously there's not many olive trees in the greatest part of the country. And people allergic to pollen, may be allergic to pollen from a whole sort of trees anyway.
As for olives themselves that's quite rarer. I think what people are actually allergic to, might be myco-toxins due to bad olives getting crushed for their oil. If they are slightly rotten, or have a nasty bug infection ('dakos' / 'δακος') and get sent to the crusher anyway, they might have traces of toxins - which can be detected upon lab examination. A lot of lower quality olive oil is that way and I think that's the issue more than anything else.
That is interesting, haven't heard that before. At this point, he gets so sick that he just avoids all olive oil. His allergy doctor has created drops for him that he takes now. Hopefully those will reduce the severity over time. Thank you for your comments.
p.s. I studied Koine Greek in grad school; it brings back memories seeing those letters again. :)