Meringue, Pavlova, or Omlette o' Death?
July 16th 2008 09:40
I'm allergic to egg white, not whole eggs, just the lame bit, which works fine for me. So although egg white is lower fat than egg yolk, I would prefer to die of cholesterol at age 78 than a strawberry pavlova at Sizzler. Due to my allergy I have never eaten a meraguine, a pavola, a quiche, the hot breakfast on a plane and many potato salads.
Everytime I go to a restaurant I have to ask things like, "How eggy are the pancakes" or "Is the chocolate cake old school or a new age one made on 95% cocoa and 15 egg whites?" Once I asked how eggy are the corn fritters? And the waitress came back from the kitchen said "The have 104 grams of eggs, will that kill you?"
Explaining my allergy, which is only to half a food is complex. However even more difficult than dining out as an only child with a freak allergy, is having afternoon tea after school at someone's house. When trying to explain,my egg white allergy to mothers I think Im saying
"I am allergic to eggwhite, over the years I have been abe to learn to tolerate some egg white perhps 1 egg in a cake is fine but I cant eat whole foods based on egg white. Aka a brownie is fine, an omlette is death"
However what they hear is:
"Hi, I want to make your life very difficult. I can't eat any food,containing the letters, a,e,u or that has been touched by humans. I am allergic to air and sunshine, I need my food fed to me through my bubble please, I hope you have the ambulance on stand by because I am about to die at your breakfast bar"
This allergy is hard to explain to mothers of my friends who say "oh so you can't have cake then?" Which I can, I can handle one egg spread out over a whole cake. But not a whole cake made only out of egg white. They can't understand it. At afternoon tea,everone else gets a cake with one egg in and I get a dry ryvita with vegemite. The mothers say things like, " I didn't know you were allergic, I can't cater for special needs children"
I'm not retarded, I just can't eat meringue. I'm not expecting to be fed the milk of a himalayan yak, I'm just asking for a snack that wont kill me. There are plenty of snacks that wont kill me, but all they can think of is every egg based snack, "Ive got some left over spanish omlette, no, oh what about some Quiche, I could make a quiche, no, ah, eveythings got eggs in it. Then they list every ingredient in eveything in their house, "What about bread, can you eat bread?" "let me see, bread, has flour, water, emulsifier, oh that could have eggs in it, no bread for you" I've had bread before Mrs Stevens. "No, until I can ring and find out what they make emulsifier out of, no bread for you".
Some of the more morbid mothers used to test me and try to feed me, quiche just to see if I would die. Obviosly I didn't. The number of housewives I've had to talk out of giving me a tracieotomy with a rusty potato peeler. Im like "just a anthystime will be fine".
Then they start to realise that due to common sense I must eat food."What do you eat?" I tell them I can handle one egg spread out over a whole dish. This is when they start to turn on me, and say that thing that every mother say said to me when Ive been over they house for some play time. the clincher, their arms crossed, they transform from panic based care to hatefilled suspicion "Oh, so you're not allergic to eggs, then, you just don't like them". It's like they thought that had a rare bengal tiger in their very backyard, then they've just had a closer look and its only the bloody cat from next door.
Yours in allergy friendly nosh,
The Lady of Nosh
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Comment by Patricia Resnick
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Everyone's first reaction is, oh, you're lactose intolerant. Yes, I am, but that has nothing to do with it. The more casein (milk protein) in something, the less I can tolerate it.
Oh, but you can eat butter, huh? Yeah, there's very little casein left once you've extracted just the fat.
I've sat at holiday meals with people who love me, and the table was loaded with things that were made with milk and/or cheese. From the appetizers to dessert. But they had made a special beef dish because some other guest has a religious problem with pork. And a special fruit thing for the diabetic's dessert. Even potato gnocchi because someone was allergic to wheat!
"Oh, it's just a little bit of cheese, it won't kill you!" Well, no, it hasn't yet, but I don't want to start now!