Food allergies, aversions and adversities. An archival* essay.

Now, let me start off with a disclaimer: I’m not belittling or minimizing allergies.  As a physician and husband I know that peanut butter and wasps can kill.  I’ve seen, indeed experienced, hives, urticaria and shortness to the point of stifling of breath.

That said: when my next table neighbor says “I’m allergic to tripes, pig’s feet or veal brains,” I cast my eyes heavens-ward.  Likewise with Bambi, bunnies, horses and dogs.  Those aren’t allergies – they’re aversions.  But Americans, especially in French and Asian restaurants, think that it is more excusable to say “I’m allergic,” I think, than to say – “I don’t like X, Y or Z.”

And then, there are those, who when presented with confit de canard without the garlicky sarladaise potatoes, or veal liver without bacon, or kidneys without mustard - go ballistic.  Unnh folks, chefs are trying something other than you had 50 years ago.  At best consider it a temporary adversity.

These thoughts came to me last week as I was dining at the newest rendition of the Café Very, smack in the middle of the Tuileries.  This place, which before its takeover was more likely thought of as an oasis for a quick Coke on a hot day, has surely changed under the influence of Gilles Choukroun.

Choukroun is the guy, you’ll recall, who first came to stardom near another park, the Luxembourg, at his innovative, delicious and sometimes breathtakingly fusiony Café des Delices.  Then he moved on to the Angl’Opera where his food became even more edgy and while he became a poster boy for the “Le Fooding” folks, after two meals there, he lost me; it was too reminiscent of the 1960’s nouvelle cuisine excesses called “kiwis and ketchup” in my house.  Indeed he even had a quirky catsup sauce on the scallop dish on the menu.

But with the Café Very, I think he’s returned towards center.  While his name appears no where on the menu, his fingerprints are all over.  For instance, on the tartare MBC (which we had to ask about - it stands for mango, basil & coriander), on a huge, long chicken spring roll with a side of basil sauce and a wonderfully spicily dressed pile of greens and a so-called gazpacho which was really a dense, terrifically spicy tomato salsa into which one dipped spicy radishes, with a rondelle of butter on a strip of bamboo aside it. 

So back to my point.  If you expect a classic gazpacho, or steak tartare, or spring roll, or slice of smoked salmon on a white plate at a Choukroun-influenced place, forget it.  And if you get queasy just thinking of chefs cooking the most delicate of dishes in a swirl of goose fat or seeing someone tuck into a mound of tripes a la whatever, certainly don’t order them.  But evoking allergies instead of aversions and adversities should no longer fly.

My only suggestion among places mentioned is:

Le Café Very

In the center of the Tuileries, on the Concorde side, 1^st (Metro:Tuileries)

T: 01.47.03.94.84

Open everyday, lunch until 10:30 PM

A la carte about 25-40 €

*Originally published in March 2007.

Comments

[John Talbott]

This just in:
Food allergies may be less common than believed.
On its front page, the New York Times (5/12, A1, Kolata) reports that approximately "30 percent of the population believe they have food allergies," but a new report, "commissioned by the federal government," indicates that many of those people are wrong. "While there is no doubt that people can be allergic to certain foods, with reproducible responses ranging from a rash to a severe life-threatening reaction, the true incidence of food allergies is only about eight percent for children and less than five percent for adults."

Before reaching those conclusions, "researchers at Stanford University, Rand Corp., and the Veterans Affairs Palo Alto Healthcare System searched databases, analyzed reviews, assessed controlled trials, and compared sample sizes," the Los Angeles Times (5/11, Dennis) "Booster Shots" blog reported. "Their conclusion largely seems to be: What a mess." In other words, there is "voluminous literature related to food allergy, but high-quality studies are few." Yet, the confusion begins with terminology, according to the Wall Street Journal (5/11, Hobson) "Health Blog."

It "turns out that the term 'food allergy' has no universally accepted definition, nor are there well-accepted criteria for diagnosis," CNN (5/11, Landau) pointed out. Indeed, a "common method of diagnosing food allergies is the skin prick test," and a number of physicians "also recommend blood tests called 'serum-food specific IgE,'" while others turn to the "atopy patch test." But, "none of these methods...says anything about the severity of symptoms that a person will experience if he or she ingests the substance -- for some, there may be no reaction at all." In short, "there is no one test that's better than the other, either, researchers said."

Investigators also "looked at 25 studies of seven food allergy management strategies: elimination, immunotherapy, food substitutions, diets in breastfeeding women, medical or pharmacologic therapies, probiotics, and education," MedPage Today (5/11, Fiore) reported. Regarding elimination diets, the "lone study that assessed their effects reported improvement in atopic dermatitis," and "immunotherapy is promising...but data are insufficient to recommend use." In terms of prevention, "the researchers found that delayed introduction of solids was tied to decreased food intolerance, but the quality of these studies was limited," as well.

According to Medscape (5/11, Larson), this led the investigators to conclude that the "sweeping lack of key information has led to an overdiagnosis of food allergies -- a dangerous situation." But, on the other hand, the team wrote in their Journal of the American Medical Association paper, the "overdiagnosis or misdiagnosis of food allergy by medical practitioners obscures the substantial morbidity caused in patients truly affected by immune-mediated food allergy and serves to perpetuate some public misperceptions that food allergy is a trivial medical condition." HealthDay (5/11, Preidt) also covered the study.