Food Allergies

A lot of sauces have anchovies in them but I've never seen shellfish in BBQ sauce.

Like Joe says,good Worcestershire sauce may well have an anchovie base.A lot of sauces may have woster.

I'd just say"I don't think so.but maybe you should pass on the order for personal concerns".

Not strange anymore,but msg is often asked about and lawyer advised manufacturers have clients remove it.

Now Wholesalers sell the huge containers,or cases,so cooks can add it back in.

About 5 years ago one of my wait staff came into the kitchen with a list of items her customer was allergic to. The list was 13 items long. This is during the rush hour of a very busy evening. The list included dairy, gluten, salt, sugar, onions, garlic, shallots...on and on. Long story short, the customer enjoyed a plate of steamed broccoli.

quote:

Originally posted by MaxQ:
About 5 years ago one of my wait staff came into the kitchen with a list of items her customer was allergic to. The list was 13 items long. This is during the rush hour of a very busy evening. The list included dairy, gluten, salt, sugar, onions, garlic, shallots...on and on. Long story short, the customer enjoyed a plate of steamed broccoli.

Like only a good chef can prepare.

I seriously had a person ask:

quote:

Do you put Ketchup or Tomatoes in your Red Sauces

Yes, they were serious when they asked. And I was very professional (not a SA) when I told him we did.

Interesting topic, the food allergy thing. In my family, I have 3 members with Celiac disease (wife and 2 kids). So for years, we've prepared food Gluten free, bbq and smoked food included. So when we opened the restaurant, we had the gluten free aspect already planned. When gluten free folks come in, they are thrilled to hear that instead of a list of whats 'gluten free', we tell them the only 2 items that contain gluten. The only gluten containing items we have are the rolls, and the smoked mac and cheese. However, we also offer the smoked mac and cheese in a GF version (different noodle) and also a gluten free roll, which we charge a little more for but is a very nice restaurant grade roll, not available retail. Our restaurant was recently highlighted on a Philadelphia site, GFPhilly, which greatly increased the number of GF folks frequenting our restaurant. We have quite a few gluten intolerant folks as regular customers, and that base is growing steadily. The real kick is this - we have for example a family of 4 that stop in. The mother and daughter have celiac disease, the father and son do not. For years, when the entire family goes out to eat, they typically go to places that are GF. The father and son often get dragged through some fairly poor food offerings. The result is the entire family is thrilled - the gluten intolerant mother and daughter can eat whatever they want, and the father and son are eating some good BBQ ! Everyone's happy, very happy. We receive many comments akin to "I can't believe this is gluten free !" The good news is, it's not hard to prepare most BBQ foods gluten free, so not a stretch on our part. Even our cornbread is GF - my wife is an experienced whiz at working with rice flour after many years.

That being said, we've also had some folks come in with some extensive allergy lists - and whenever they mention nuts, I tell them there's no way I can assure that, especially when they mention they forgot their epi pen. Last week, I had a guy stop in, who had a severe pork allergy. He can't eat anything that has came into contac with pork, apparently the 'oil' from the meat, per his description. Well, being a BBQ joint, I told him there was no way I could assure that level of non-exposure - cause we got ribs and butts flying all over the place. Bummer, because I had some nice racks of beef ribs I was looking to get rid of at the end of that day when he stopped in - but they were cooked on the same smoker racks that pork had been on, so a no-go for him.

Oh, and as Murphy Law seems to rule, it's typically during the peak traffic times when someone hangs at the counter to go over every allergen and ingredient.