Why lie about health problems?

[Lots42]

Here's what I don't get: It's perectly natural not to like the taste of something but if a store puts on the object after I ask for it to -not- be put on...I don't want to eat there period. Even if they give me a new sandwhich without the object. I've done sandwhiches. Details are important. If the employees cannot figure out 'no pickle' then I shudder to think what else they cannot figure out.

[Cazzi]

I used to go to a slimming group where the class leader actually encouraged other slimmers to tell restaurants they were very allergic to something so they wouldn't get it in a meal!

Having worked & run a pub kitchen for years in the past, I tried to explain that it wouldn't be fair to the staff there who would basically have to do a quick deep clean before preparing that persons meal or the other patrons who would then have to wait longer if it were a small kitchen... not to mention it would give those of us with genuine allergies a bad name anyway but she just didn't get it!

From experience there's nothing more annoying when running a small but very busy on that day kitchen, myself cooking and one wait staff to have a note come through with "very allergic to tomatoes" on it, having to basically clean down everything & rewash hands etc to make that meal, putting everyone else's orders back and ending up finishing late after dealing with complaints about why meals were late out... just to have the guy wink at the wait staff & say he wasn't really allergic, just wanted to make sure he didn't get tomatoes!

[Kisa]

From experience there's nothing more annoying when running a small but very busy on that day kitchen, myself cooking and one wait staff to have a note come through with "very allergic to tomatoes" on it, having to basically clean down everything & rewash hands etc to make that meal, putting everyone else's orders back and ending up finishing late after dealing with complaints about why meals were late out... just to have the guy wink at the wait staff & say he wasn't really allergic, just wanted to make sure he didn't get tomatoes!

Exactly! If you really, truely are allergic, feel free to let us know so we can clean up to keep you out of the hospital. If you just don't likt something. Emphasise that you do. Not. Want. Blank. And check your food before you go. Mistakes happen. Even more so when a group of exausted and frustrated fast food cooks are making your order in a hot, crowded, loud kitchen. Mistakes do not mean incompetance.

[Seshat]

And just to complicate the issue, there's "sensitives" - which are 'this substance will cause medical problems but not a histamine reaction'.

I'm allergic (histamine reaction) to penicillin.
I'm sensitive (assorted gut malfunctions or other problems) to seafood, citrus, most other tart/tangy fruits including tomato, some dairy but not others (weird, yes), stuff pickled in vinegar, wines both white and red ..... and a bunch of other things.

Before I managed to get my body as relatively healthy as it is, my sensitivities included chicken and lettuce! (yes, plain old iceberg lettuce!)

I don't need the kitchen to be cleaned of seafood/citrus/etc. But I do need my food to be made without whatever the item is. And picking the offending item off won't be enough: I can still end up nauseous or with the runs or whichever symptom that particular one causes. (My exact sensitivity varies from item to item.)

I usually just ask for 'no blah', or ask 'is there fish paste or wine in the sauce/marinade/whatever', or otherwise be as nice as I can about it. But if it's made wrong and I have to ask for a full remake instead of just the item being picked off, some people get so annoyed!

[EricKei]

I don't have any allergies (that I am aware of), though I definitely qualify as "sensitive" to alcohol. I simply *dislike* things like mustard and pickles...and most of the other toppings on burgers, so I always ask for ketchup only or ketchup/cheese only. While I don't mind picking off pickles when they do screw up, that doesn't change the fact that the juice is still there and it still tastes like pickes & vinegar...And with mustard, the best I can do is scrape some off, which invariably leaves the burger overwhelmed by the taste x.x I'm not gonna ask for a remake on a dollar burger, but on a "real" burger from a non fast-food place that costs 3 times as much? Hell yeah I will. Then again, it's been my experience that most such places put toppings on the side so you can choose for yourself; its simpler fort them and faster for us, so I'm happy ^_^

[bainsidhe]

But if it's made wrong and I have to ask for a full remake instead of just the item being picked off, some people get so annoyed!

See, I don't get this. It's only human to be frustrated when you have to spend additional time remaking something, but it's still THEIR mistake. As long as you're polite (which I'm sure you are), there's no reason for them to act visibly huffy and aggravated because they have to fix their mistake. I do hope you explain it has to be REMADE due to your sensitivities, I've had coworkers who thought nothing of just picking the offending item off. If it were that simple, the customer would've done it themselves.

[Seshat]

Bainsidhe,

I'll make a point of explaining the need to remake it in the future - thanks. I do try to be polite, but I may not have explicitly said 'remake' every time.

EricKei,

I know exactly what you mean about taking off pickles or scraping off mustard. Both have such overwhelming flavours to them! Scraping off mustard still means all I taste is mustard, not burger!

[wolfie]

From experience there's nothing more annoying when running a small but very busy on that day kitchen, myself cooking and one wait staff to have a note come through with "very allergic to tomatoes" on it, having to basically clean down everything & rewash hands etc to make that meal, putting everyone else's orders back and ending up finishing late after dealing with complaints about why meals were late out... just to have the guy wink at the wait staff & say he wasn't really allergic, just wanted to make sure he didn't get tomatoes!

People like that deserve "Attention! Anyone whose food order is late can thank this clown (point out offender) claimed to be allergic to tomatoes when, as he later admitted, he just didn't like them, resulting in the need to thouroughly clean the kitchen", followed by the banhammer.

[Athaelia]

This thread reminds me of an episode of Sex and the City. Carrie and her date are at an upscale restaurant , and when she orders, she tells the server she's allergic to parsley, so NO parsley on the plate please. Her date calls bullshit on this after the server leaves, and Carrie says it's to ensure NO parsley ends up on her plate...or she'll feel bad when she sends it back.

I never have this problem at sit-down restaurants, but fast-food places are notorious for putting tomato on my food even though I politely request no tomato. I hate the taste of fresh tomato. I hate the taste of the seeds...it's revolting (IMO). But I ALSO have been on the other side of that drive-thru window and know people aren't perfect, and fast food is...well...fast...so I can't expect the same level of perfection or attention to detail from Mickey D's that I can expect from Mortimers-By-The-Lake.

[zombiequeen]

Okay, here's a good example of how to do it right.

I got an omelette (nummm!) today and asked for sausage to be added, no cheese. New waitress, she accidentally didn't hear I said no cheese (there were loud people behind us, I totally understand) I get the omelette, go to take it to the counter, but a different waitress gets it and has it remade. No complaints or waving or freakouts or anything. Everyone was all smiles, and I didn't even let the waitress apologize, because it wasn't an issue really.

Another odd sensitivity: my husband cannot eat green peppers unless they have been cooked down in a tomato sauce. Otherwise he's sick for about a week. He can't have olives period, but he can have olive oil in food. He ate pizza yesterday at the pizza ranch (pizza buffet place) and he was sick today. He thinks it was because they brought out the pizza he ate (meat lovers) and a supreme pizza with olives at the same time and they must have touched at some point or something. He probably will be sick on and off for about two weeks just because of the olives.
He's sensitive about onions and garlic too, but that's because he didn't grow up with fresh, just powdered onion or garlic. He doesn't do too well when I make spaghetti...

[Moon]

One time I was at the oldest burger chain there is (clown mascot, top part of sign looks a little like 2 bent french fries) and I asked for a burger with LOTS of extra ketchup and NO pickles. I got.... wait for it..... EXTRA pickles. Of course, it was at the drive-through, so I just had to pick a lot more off (the normal 2-3 pickles is bad enough) as I didn't start eating until i got home.

And does anyone remember this commercial? Geico pre-gecko.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Md-UqopHrKU

[MoonCat]

We've had food come out wrong more often at sit-down places than at fast-food places. Except for the pizza/sub place that we order from on the phone, they sometimes don't hear the "no onions" part when we order subs, but it's extremely noisy there, I can hear it over the phone, so I can understand. It's not that big a deal, it's just that they are SO generous with the onions--they put heaps of them on--and we don't want that many. My sister once took hers off and saved them to use in cooking the next day.

[Andara Bledin]

I can't even remember anyone asking him why he's allergic to tomatoes & not sauce (we think it's the acidity or something)!

When you cook tomatoes, it changes the chemical makeup of the part that most people are actually allergic to, so in many cases, a person will be allergic to fresh but not processed.

I'm guilty of the 'allergic' to onion thing; it's more of a texture thing, biting into even little bits of onion just hits the right button for a gag reflex for me, to the point where I will sit there picking every bit of onion out of food if I know it's there.

I can handle a little bit of fresh onion, but even a tiny bit of water chestnut will make me want to spit out whatever's in my mouth. Which is very sad because for whatever reason, the vast majority of seafood based spreads on the shelves have the nasty crap in them.

I've done sandwhiches. Details are important. If the employees cannot figure out 'no pickle' then I shudder to think what else they cannot figure out.

It's not that they can't figure it out, but that they're in autopilot. Pretty much everybody has done something like this at some point. The easiest example I can think of is when driving to a place where you don't normally go but that shares the beginning of the route with someplace that you go very often - I have, more than once, been heading to the mall after work instead of to my house and forgotten that I wasn't going straight home and ended up taking the first left halfway there instead of the second.

When they do it more than once, however, then I'd start to wonder if they have other issues as well.

^-.-^

[bainsidhe]

I'm very vocal in this thread for some reason. I've been in sit-down restaurants where something is in the food that I requested be removed. I've had the server ask if they can just scrape off the offending item or if it needed to be remade. While that isn't the most polite question ever, I appreciate them asking, since I find certain items more disgusting than others. If it can just be scraped off, then the restaurant isn't wasting food. And if I really wanted/needed something remade, it's clear they'd do it with no hassle.

Zombiequeen, what someone else mentioned about food places and cross-contamination is spot on. The olives will fall into the sausage container, the onions into the lettuce, etc. Workers move quick and food falls everywhere, including places it doesn't belong. Plus, that pizza cutter for the supreme was probably used on multiple pizzas, another case of cross-contamination. If your hubby is sensitive to certain things, it may be better to at least give workers a heads-up in advance. Still no guarantee, because workers won't see olive juice that's leeched over into the onion bucket, but he stands a better chance of not getting sick.

[Arwyn Q]

I will agree on only a small part of one point in what that person said: Sometimes you have to say you're allergic to something to have it taken off. I've found that if I tell someone I'm allium intolerant they'll usually kind of ignore it and I often end up with onion or garlic in my food. I sometimes have to tell them that I'm allergic to something (though I'd never say that I'm "deathly allergic") to make sure it's not put on.

While I wouldn't die from eating alliums, I will get a severely upset stomach and acid reflux and that can ruin my night. Even sitting next to someone eating raw onions will make me fairly sick to my stomach, which is a shame because I really do love onions and garlic.