Walnut, Age 2.
My first encounter with a nut was at age two. One of my father’s colleagues was throwing a party at his house. It was a swanky affair, where the children were segregated from the adults and made to stay outside and be neither heard nor seen. These being simpler times, before children like me ruined nuts for everyone else, I was given some fancy-ass dessert with walnuts in it. I ate it and my mouth immediately began to itch.
I ran inside to tell my parents about what was going on with my mouth, and they gave me a glass of water. The hostess noticed that a child had infiltrated the house, and was being, to quote my mom, “a real bitch about it.” The fact that I was having an allergic reaction was not a good enough excuse for me to be inside her home. I drank a lot of water and the itchiness gradually disappeared, but we left the party anyway.
Cashew, Age 9.
Following the walnut incident, my parents took me for a test. A doctor pricked my back with needles covered with allergens and noted where my skin reacted. He gave my parents a list of the things I was allergic to: tree nuts (but not peanuts or almonds), ragweed pollen, cats, dogs, dust, and birch trees. I was prescribed an EpiPen and ordered to carry it around everywhere, which I sometimes remembered to do.
My aunt had a cottage near the Kawartha Lakes that we often visited. The log cabin was right on the river, where my siblings and I would spend the day drifting down the river in inner tubes. When my aunt offered me Clodhoppers one evening, I forgot about my allergy. I became pretty blasé about the whole nut allergy thing. I scoffed in the face of anaphylaxis. I ate things given to me without asking questions, shoving them into my mouth with reckless abandon. Dessert at a potluck? Hors d’oeuvres at a reception? Sandwich with pesto? Sure, why not! What’s the worst that could happen? I ate the Clodhopper. It was delicious – for a few seconds.
My aunt looked on in horror as I ran to the washroom. I puked several times before my throat started to close up. Hives sprung up on my arms. Everything itched and my eyes and nose were leaking. My mom wanted to use the EpiPen, but then it was over, before she could find it. This is when I became familiar with the guilt, the guilt of the person-who-has-accidentally-given-you-a-nut. Unlike that party hostess, my aunt was penitent, apologizing and apologizing. A similar fear flashes across the face of every server when they say, “But we can’t guarantee it hasn’t come in contact with nuts.” It’s okay. You are not to blame for the hypersensitivity of my immune system.
Hazelnuts, Age 15.
Nutella is to Italy as peanut butter is to North America. Italians love their goddamn Nutella. (I am so sick of hearing about Nutella. I get it. I know. You eat it by the spoonful. I’m missing out. My life has no meaning.) My family took a vacation to Italy on March break when I was in the tenth grade, not realizing that we were wandering into a den of hazelnuts.
The first time I encountered Nutella we were in Rome. After taking a leisurely promenade down the cobblestone streets, we entered a gelato place. A gigantic tub of Nutella was ominously perched on the counter. I got strawberry cheesecake gelato or whatever; I ate so much gelato on our trip that the flavours began to blend together. However, I clearly remember my sister’s choice: Nutella gelato.
I offered my sister a bite of my gelato, which she took. I was eating my gelato when suddenly my throat began to close up. My sister had taken a spoonful of my gelato using her spoon, and the traces of Nutella gelato from her spoon had made their way into my mouth. I had trouble breathing for about half an hour but recovered naturally. Hazelnuts are not such a bad reaction for me, but it tends to cause panic in the people around me, who are afraid that I am going to suffocate. Nothing spoils the joys of The Eternal City quite like your loved ones debating about whether or not to stab you in the thigh with an epinephrine autoinjector.
The second time in Italy that I encountered the dreaded hazelnut was in Pisa. We were staying in a lovely hotel that used to be a fort. Poor, naïve me ate a chocolate left on a pillow. Italians sure love their hazelnuts.
Mystery Nut, Age 20.
My most recent run-in with a tree nut was in Ottawa. I’m from Ontario, so I’ve been there before, but this trip was special because I was there with a group from a scholarship foundation, a mix of Canadians and Americans. When an event got cut short, we were released to freely roam the streets of the capital. Because our very fancy hotel didn’t offer free WiFi, I visited a nearby coffee shop to use their Internet. (I won’t name names, but I will say that it was not a Tim Horton’s. I don’t mean to sully a national institution.)
Carrot cake tends to have nuts in it. After eighteen years of vigilance, I’ve learned that there are certain desserts you avoid, and carrot cake is usually one of them. The coffee shop had carrot cake on display, and it looked delicious. There were also ingredients on display; hallelujah. I read the ingredients list over once, twice. No nuts were listed. Excited, I broke my rule against carrot cake and ordered it. The moment I bit into it I knew I’d been lied to. I high-tailed it back to my beautiful hotel room and proceeded to puke about five times. I’m still not exactly sure what nut was in there, though I suspect pecans were the culprit.
I called the trip organizers and told them I couldn’t make it to the next event. They wanted to know if I needed an ambulance, but I assured them I’d be fine to stay behind alone and that I had my EpiPen with me. I spent the next couple hours in the hotel room with a great view of downtown Ottawa watching “Say Yes to the Dress” and intermittently puking, instead of at the US ambassador’s house, which apparently had the nicest bathroom anyone on the trip had ever seen.
When I rejoined the group at dinner, the Americans told me I should sue.
Tags: allergies, food, grist for mallory’s nut mill, nuts, sarah robert, she’s probably making it up
hahaha my first thought with the carrot cake was also LAWSUIT. <3 u american tort law
Torte law? 😉
My beloved sister-in law is also super allergic to tree nuts, and I always made a point of checking where her Epi-Pen was, harbouring elaborate fantasies about saving her life. One day she nearly ate a hazlenut and I said to her “Phew, I thought I was going to have to get your Epi-Pen and stab you in the heart!” And she was like “…The HEART? NO, not the heart, dude, the LEG.”
I mean, imagine.
That definitely would have been my first instinct! The only reason I know it is the leg now, is that my boyfriend has to be trained on it since he works in a school. Apparently you hold your arm our to the side, and then let it swing full force down into your leg.
I blame Quentin Tarantino for the misconception
After my friend became surprise!allergic to tree nuts after college we all spent some time stabbing her in the leg with the practice epipen that they give you to, uh, practice stabbing. We also stabbed ourselves in the leg with the practice epipen to see what it felt like. Since it was only a practice pen it didn’t feel like much of anything.
Should I feel horrible about how funny I thought this was? You have a great sense of humor, this all seems so terrifying.
My best friend is super allergic to peanuts and I’m always terrified that I’ll have to Epi-Pen her sometime when we’re out at dinner. On the plus side, she actually carries her Epi-Pen with her, which she didn’t used to, so. At least there’s that.
My mom has a severe hazelnut allergy that she developed in her 20’s. My aunt has a severe shellfish allergy she developed in her 30’s. And now, I’m just waiting for my delicious food allergy to kick in. At this point, I’m just hoping for not-chocolate.
BAN ALL NUTS
could we though I would really appreciate that
Oddly, nuts were pretty much the only thing I was NOT allergic to as a child. But I feel for you, Sarah, as avoiding corn was a similar sort of feat (though it was much easier in the 80s when not everything was made with corn syrup).
I am allergic to every nut on the face of the planet, plus some nuts that aren’t even actually nuts. When I was little, my dad (a former EMT) used to describe to me in great detail how he would use a ballpoint pen to give me an emergency tracheotomy if necessary in case of a bad reaction.
As you might guess, my allergies are a source of lingering anxiety for me as an adult.
I’d really like to know how to perform an emergency tracheotomy with a ballpoint pen. Didn’t someone on MASH have to do one? One of the non-doctors? Could I just watch that scene as a tutorial? Do I even own a ballpoint pen anymore?
I DON’T EVEN KNOW IF YOU COULD. IS MY DAD EVEN QUALIFIED?!?!
oh god it’s real http://www.wikihow.com/Perform-a-Tracheotomy with drawings even
please nobody learn how to do this from wikihow
Omg, can you imagine? Up to your elbows in neck blood, a knife in one hand and a pen in the other, when the cops arrive. “What? I learned it from wikihow.”
“Ah…yes, officer, now that you mention it I do remember Wikihow warning me that I might be legally responsible.”
Hah, they actually did a (similar) joke in that recent buddy cop movie with Julia Roberts and that One Round Lady That Hollywood Uses For Every Movie With A Sassy Round Lady.
Jack Klugman did one that way on Quincy, as I recall. The emergency tracheotomy is always good TV.
YES. It was Father Mulcahy. Hawkeye helped him do it over the radio when Mulcahy went to an aid station. Great episode. And now I just want to watch episodes of MASH all day.
I used to just say I didn’t like chili, but since that one time in New Mexico where I thought I was going to die, I say I’m allergic. I didn’t have throat-closing, but a sort of unbearable chest tightness and overwhelming nausea.
Also, thank CHRIST none of the BBs are allergic to nuts (or anything else as far as we know); feeding them involves enough drama already.
I have to say, for being a story about a potentially life-threatening allergy, this was absolutely delightful. You’re a great writer.
However, this is just more fuel on the anxiety-driven fire that is my obsessive fear of accidentally murdering someone.
In case pedantic internet quibbling helps your fears, it’s impossible to accidentally murder someone. It’d by definition be manslaughter. You’d just have to look horrified in the dock, not guilty.
Thank you very much! Glad you liked it!
I have an EpiPen! I was prescribed it because lately if I get stung by a bee or bitten by an ant or whatever, I get just a little more anaphylaxisy each time. Anyway, it lives in my purse and I kind of love it. It seems like something a more useful Batman would carry.
Oh man, I have the same bee/ant thing and my best friend in college was SUPER psyched about my epi pen. He wanted to stab me with that thing so much.
Frankly, if I live to a ripe ol’ age and die without having stabbed myself or someone else with it, I’m going to be a little disappointed.
This is how concealed carry handgun permit holders feel, too, isn’t it?
I ALSO have a tree nut allergy, and I also ate Nutella accidentally while in Europe (it was in a crepe! I was 16! Nutella wasn’t really like a “thing” back then so I had no idea!) I have also accidentally eaten walnuts a bunch of times because people are always hiding walnuts in otherwise delicious things like dips and baked goods. Walnuts are pretty much the bane of my existence.
My brother has a severe walnut allergy, and yeah, it’s annoying that they’re frequently hidden in stuff you wouldn’t expect them to be hidden in. He had a reaction when we were on vacation eating at a Mediterranean food place, and there must have been Surprise! Walnuts in the dolmas or hummus or something. It’s made my mom and me super paranoid, because while my brother is chill about his brushes with anaphylactic death, we are a little more concerned and end up grilling servers about whether there are hidden walnuts in the salad, dip, pesto, etc.
Yeah, It’s such a pain because I TRY to ask if there are nuts in things without being totally annoying about it, and sometimes people will say no, but then I’m all like, ugh, I’m about to vomit now and YOU WERE WRONG.
Walnuts are sneaky. For months I had no clue pesto typically had nuts in it, actually; I just got lucky that I didn’t eat any pesto with nuts. Also – walnut oil is now a thing, apparently! I saw it in the grocery store recently. They’re putting it in everything now. Yay.
It’s not even supposed to! It’s supposed to be pine nuts, which are sometimes okay for people with tree nut problems! But a lot of cheap pesto has walnuts OR EVEN CASHEWS, which I found out one time when a fucking Trader Joe’s soup sample had a separate pesto product mixed into in it even though nothing indicated that was the case.
This story speaks to me, as I am also allergic to tree nuts and have also been BLATANTLY LIED TO on “ingredients” lists of coffee shop pastries, once on a class trip to Philadelphia in 8th grade. My reactions have never been all that bad, because I would have to eat a lot of nuts for me to go in anaphylaxis, usually I just drink half a bottle of benadryl and nap the mouth and throat hives off.
Also totally feel you on being sick to death of hearing about the ambrosia of the gods that is Nutella.
I’m always pleasantly surprised when someone says “You’re not missing anything, it’s just shitty chocolate.”
Not as good as regular chocolate spread/Lotus spread. Promise.
That last story was basically the premise for the Canadian show Being Erica. I totally thought you were going to be able to go back in time.
Fantastic piece!
Oh man, I was with my friend and her toddler in a cafe when she let her lick a little of the foam off of her hazelnut latte. Cue coughing, red face, Izzy trying to itch her little tongue. Lucky me, with my extensive history of allergies, telling her “Oh hey honey, she’s not choking, that’s an allergic reaction!”. The hospital trip was fun.
This was great! Please be careful out there!
My old roommate had to epi-pen herself once and the next day she showed us the biggest, nastiest bruise I have ever seen on her thigh. Epi-pens are serious weapons!
She also gave us a bunch of expired ones once so we could stab them into fruit (apparently this is how you dispose of them?) and the way the needle pops out – and the size of it – was terrrrrifying! I was too scared to stab my orange properly because the needle was so big and the orange so small, I was sure I’d miss and stab myself and die.
The one time I’ve used one, when I pulled out the needle a GIGANTIC FOUNTAIN OF BLOOD spurted out. I was really not expecting that, but being in the middle of a reaction, I was just like, “well, everything is already pretty weird, what’s a gigantic fountain of blood.”
This is meeee! The number of times something has had hidden pesto in it makes me so ragey, if it has nuts, just list it on the goddamn menu!
I have had a restaurant manager say it was my fault I had a reaction because I didn’t tell them I had a nut allergy, after ordering chicken parmigiana and chips with a side salad! Not your typical nut-filled food…apparently I should have just known the side salad would have pesto dressing, idiots.
Although Italy is the land of nutella, I found it easier to avoid nuts there as they have a word for “nut”, whereas in France I got sneaky almond meal in pastry, because they don’t have a word for all nuts, just the names of individual nuts, at least according to the phrase book.
And I want the current trend of chocolate and peanut butter to die, because I just know I would LOVE it if I could eat it, *sob*
I'm right now making cookies for work tomorrow and one of my coworkers is allergic to peanuts, is it safe for him to eat them if I had a salad with peanuts in it with dinner and then washed my hands twice??
Unless he is really, truly, deathly allergic, he's probably fine! I'd explain what you just said. Most people's allergies aren't severe enough that something like that would be a problem, but it varies so much from person to person that you should probably give him a head's up, just to be safe.
Sneaky ingredients are so fucking annoying. It mostly happens to me with cheese stuff (medium-okay case of lactose intolerance here, nothing like an anaphylactic reaction) and I have learned to say “no cheese” for just about any menu item whether I think it needs it or not–salads, soups, appetizers, pasta dishes without cheese listed anywhere on the dish description. It’s like its impossible to imagine a dish without a sprinkle of cheese being good or something? I just…..if you’re going to put cheese on it, fucking say it on the menu!!! Nuts too!
*vent over*
Yeah, it’s gotten to the point where I basically ask about literally everything. I have to ask if a plain-seeming pizza has nuts, because you never know when – surprise – traces of pesto! It seems like restaurants have gotten better at labeling things like gluten-free options, but if anything they seem to be actually getting worse about labeling nuts.
My favorite is when I order something with soy milk and they sub cow milk, or they slap cheese on a burger when I haven’t asked for it. I’m lactose intolerant, not allergic, which is good. I can handle a random amount of dairy, but I typically budget my diet for it. Unexpected dairy is… painful. For me, and everyone around me.
Hey, this is me too! I love the way you wrote about this – you captured so many of the quirks of having this kind of allergy (not usually life threatening, but super inconvenient) that I wouldn’t have thought to articulate but have also been part of my experience. Like… the weird non-sympathy you get from some strangers contrasted with the weird too-much-sympathy you get from loved ones. 🙂
Also, yes, if everyone could shut up about nutella now, that would be great.
I would think that if he's THAT allergic to peanuts that he wouldn't eat food prepared by other people.
My husband is from Eastern Europe (well, 1st generation American) AND is allergic to hazelnuts (and chestnuts and brazil nuts) which is A Big Problem because stuff made with hazelnuts is like his country of origin’s native food. His aunts frequently send him care packages including hazelnut-laden chocolate. Sometimes I eat it, but often I don’t because if I eat something with hazelnut and then kiss him several hours later his mouth tingles, sometimes his lips swell a bit. WHO WANTS THAT.
Jiff makes a peanut butter chocolate spread that’s really good, but I’ve only found it in single serve to go type packs, or as a whipped thing (at Target), not in a big ol’ jar. They actually have a BUNCH of peanut butter with chocolate and other flavors, but almost all of them have hazelnut. ARGH. I like Nutella, but the chocolate-PB spreads are IMO better.
The worst hidden nut thing in our household is bread. There’s a bunch of “health” breads that have ground up nuts in it, but they don’t say nuts on the front of the package, you have to scrutinize the actual ingredients list. Urgh.
I was surprised to learn that almonds wouldn’t be included in the “tree nut” category, but wikipedia tells me that botanically they are seeds, not nuts. The more you know.
I personally, have always found Nutella to be overrated.