You know you’ve had it too good for too long when you find a reason to complain about something that ten years ago would have been the norm. I say too good for too long, but really I should use this as a reference point for how far the goal posts have shifted since I was a teenager, especially from an allergy perspective.
For me I can’t believe how allergy conscious companies have become. I can eat with ease at festivals, in restaurants and even abroad (country depending of course). This is why I was shocked when I went to the Great British Food Festival at Harewood House and found that all I could eat was a hog roast sandwich.
Now don’t get me wrong here. I love hog roast sandwiches. But, with such an amazing array of food on offer, I was hoping that I’d have a little bit more choice.
The two things that amazed me the most, were:
- Not a single vendor had allergy information displayed. In the whole festival, the only sign I actually saw was this one which informed me that I couldn’t try their pizza sauce as the samples contained cheese. I mean it was obvious they were serving margheritas… but at least they tried.
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- The issue was mainly the bread, every type of bread was either glazed or a brioche. I mean where are the nice safe gluten-free options here people?
Anyway, I tried queuing up at a couple of interesting stalls and unfortunately being turned away each time. The best response I got was from a lovely guy at The Crazy Punjabi stall:
He was very nice and didn’t want me to risk anything due to potential contamination, but he did say as I left, “you’re the type of guy that comes to a food festival and needs to bring a packed lunch”, that made me laugh a lot, and certainly felt true on the day.
However, enough ranting, because you’d think from the tone of this post so far, that I’d had a miserable time – but it’s simply not true. I went with my family en masse and we all had a really great day. The kids danced to the live music and just loved the rides. Dad watched what must have been about a thousand cooking demonstrations, and my brother even got to watch someone demonstrating cooking in a campervan (as a keen campervan enthusiast he loved this).
The festival was classically filled with all sorts of eating competitions, people I’d never heard of from that bake off show, and gin tastings (which my wife took full advantage AND of my offer to drive her home). I myself spent £15 on a huge tub of the most amazing olives you’ve ever eaten…. I’m eating them as I type in fact.
But by far the best person I met during the festival was the wonderful Becca, from GlutenFreegan. They create cake mixes which are free of wheat, dairy, egg and of course gluten. She was kind enough to give me a free packet, so expect a review in the coming weeks. She told me that it was through a necessity of having to work out how to cook for her husband, a man that is one of the few people in the UK that has allergies worse me, and he also has intolerances. She learnt what worked and GlutenFreegan was born. I would highly recommend checking them out because as my wife said, “the chocolate cake tastes exactly like chocolate cake”. No easy task as I’m sure you’ll all agree.
In conclusion, regardless of the surprisingly poor allergy information at the food festival it was a really great day out and one that I would highly recommend. As you can see, these two agree with me…
