Confessions From a Dinner Party
Now appearing at your family gatherings—
food allergies, special dieters and finicky eaters
Mid-way into Antonya Nelson's novel Living to Tell, a single woman views her blind date from a bar doorway. Reeling off his probable failings, she concludes, "He looked quite lactose intolerant." This line cracked me up when I read it, and not just because I happened to be sitting in a hospital waiting room, readying myself to drive a friend home from a gastrointestinal procedure. That said, my circumstances might account for why I then flashed on a New Yorker short story in which a character's face is described as "trenched with anal retentive misery."
Denial, control. It's so—unfestive. And yet there's this urge to have a party.
So picture me in my Maine kitchen. We don't serve fish, nuts or sesame seeds here, as my five-year-old son has anaphylactic allergies to all three. Sometimes when I mention this, people tell me that cats make them sneeze or that onions are bad for their digestion. Once a person even said to me, "Oh, there are so many allergies now. I think they were always there. People are just starting to notice them more."
Hmmm. My son could die if he eats an almond. I think mothers, even in the unenlightened past, might have noticed something like dead offspring on the floor. I certainly noticed when—on a summer evening, haddock for dinner and gold finches landing on the bird feeder—my son's face went from that of a toddler to Boris Karloff in the span of five seconds.
What's for Dinner?
Of course, it's no problem to cut a few foods from one's menu.
But my parents are driving up from Boston for the weekend. I want a celebration, and in my family, a party means good eats. Indeed, the title of my as-yet-unwritten family history is Black and White: A Memoir in Cookies, since a cookie has accompanied all our ups and downs. There were the unenlightened Oreo years, the decade of the instant diabetes cookie (a peanut butter cookie with a Hershey's kiss shoved in the center), and then the short-lived (but entirely classy) span when we favored two shortbread cookies sandwiched together with brown sugar paste and dipped in chocolate.
At any rate, my family's favorite cookies are out for now—that will be the shocking coda to my memoir—as my father is newly diagnosed with celiac disease. That means no gluten, no wheat. I can't fall back on the Maine staple of lobster, because my father has a shellfish allergy. Years ago, he tried to eat lobster, even though he knew about the allergy. This was when he met my mother's family and was trying to impress by being agreeable to the future in-laws. As for my grandmother, her daughter had landed a Jewish Yalie headed for medical school; she was going to make the grandest meal she could think of. My father had a few bites of lobster and then almost died in the guest room.
"He seems like a nice boy," my grandmother allowed when the evening was over, "but he does seem a little sickly."
My father wasn't sickly, but he has, in his later years, and perhaps because of the long-undiagnosed celiac disease, become woefully thin. So like a Grimms' fairy tale witch, I wanted to plan a meal that would fatten him up, though it would also be nice to prepare a meal that allowed my mother to stick to her diet. Actually my mom is the easy guest, for despite her desire to slim down, she'll eat anything, even mint (which she doesn't much like). Cilantro, however, gives her a stomach. So that's out. Ditto tomatoes, white potatoes and eggplant, as my husband has some arthritis and largely avoids nightshades. |
