Ever since the girls have been tiny, chips have often been the only safe 'on the go' option – ok there have been plenty of times when they were still out of bounds, but generally if we've been at a festival, fete, beachside or day out chips may have been the only reliable option that isn't just a homemade picnic. Yes, like most allergy families, we always take supplies with us and never rely on being able to buy a meal or treat, but sometimes if you can, it's really nice to buy something that feels a bit special, even if it's just a naughty treat of some takeaway chips and ketchup!
But things have changed, or so it seems, and I blame the halloumi fry! Recently we went to a little festival, no camping, just a day out really. As we weren't going for long, I didn't take many back up options, just a few sandwiches and a couple of snacks, because we wanted to make the day feel a bit more celebratory and buy something fun to eat. There wasn't a huge range of food suppliers, maybe 8-10 but we imagined we might be able to buy something, especially since they all had their allergen menus proudly on display. How wrong we were.
It turned out to be a rather depressing lunchtime. We'd had a wonder up and down and checked the allergen menus and seen that the Greek Soulvaki stall appeared to have a completely safe (no milk, eggs, nuts or sesame) chicken Soulvaki wrap – brilliant, even the tzatziki apparently had no allergens. So we queued up, and it was a long queue (for some reason the Greek food stalls always seem the most popular these days), only to find that nothing they sold was safe and the allergen menu wasn't correct – the may contains failed to mention cross contamination, and the tzatziki was made with dairy yoghurt so definitely not dairy-free. One worrying outcome was it seemed that the owner of the stall was under the impression that deep frying in oil prevented any cross contamination, despite the halloumi fries being cooked in the same oil. We walked away disappointed. But then checking the other stalls, virtually all had one fryer which cooked halloumi fries, buttermilk chicken or pastries/falafel with sesame in the same oil as the chips. Lots of the allergen menus were not correct – items missing, or wrongly labelled, which completely negates the whole point of Natasha's law. You need to be able to rely on the accuracy of the allergen menu to be able to make decisions and ask questions. We eventually found one stall that only had one fried item, chips, so we could guarantee they were safe – and whilst that was good, the disappointment of the day had put a cloud over our enjoyment. At the end of the day, it really is so hard to eat out with allergies…
And this isn't a one-off, we've come across an ever increasing number of cross contamination issues in recent years. Have you experienced this too? How often do you find there is no safe option available?
But it got me thinking that in recent years, some aspects of having allergies have got harder – what is it with this obsession with halloumi fries! We've also noticed a trend in larger chain restaurants of having one giant fryer – this being the case in both The Real Greek and Wahaca at the very least, thus making any fried food unsafe due to cross contamination. It makes you think about cleanliness too doesn't it? I mean, if it's one giant frier for everything from fish to chicken to chips, how often do they empty the oil, and even as a vegetarian I'm not very keen on the idea of my chips being cooked alongside the battered fish (and yes those chips do taste fishy to the non-fish eater!)
What do you think? Has the halloumi fry or the buttermilk chicken, or the sesame crusted falafel made eating out harder for you?
Luckily for us the little festival we attended had Churros Amigos, a brilliant vegan churros stall – go search them out and you'll have some wonderful fresh dairy, egg and nut free churros to enjoy 😊
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