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Special diets
DINING & ENTERTAINMENT GUIDE - JAN 2007
Special diets
Holiday dining can still be enjoyable
Great meals help make great vacations. While most visitors can simply review the menu and order, not everyone can. A surprisingly high percentage of tourists have special dietary requirements. For some, the restrictions are based on personal or religious values, while for others, avoiding particular foods is quite literally a matter of life and breath.
Fortunately, in The Bahamas, you will find delicious meals to suit every palate, as professional chefs at local dining establishments strive to ensure both the health and enjoyment of their patrons.
Communicate
?Tell us your food restrictions ahead of time and we?re ready to accommodate your needs,? says executive chef Arvin Humes of Atlantis, who stresses the importance of communicating with restaurant staff.
Through the Atlantis website, visitors can alert the culinary team of their special needs in advance to ensure proper planning. Those who are not able to notify staff ahead of time can still get attention when they make their needs known when they arrive at the restaurant.
?When guests tell a waiter that they have special needs, the waiter tells the manager who alerts the chef,? says Humes. ?When I know, I go to the table and talk to them.? He makes it a habit to check on patrons during the meal and again afterwards to ensure that diners are satisfied and comfortable with
the food they have been served.
Patrons with food allergies or restricted diets agree that communication is vital, as they are placing their health in the hands of the chef and restaurant staff.
?Nancy? (not her real name), who suffers from celiac disease, an autoimmune disorder that necessitates avoiding all gluten-containing foods (gluten is the protein found in wheat, rye and barley) begins by narrowing down her choices on the menu, then quizzing waitstaff about the ingredients in dishes she might order. ?Most people don?t realize that wheat is used in a lot of things, and is often found in places you don?t expect it,? she says.
When Nancy has the least doubt, she takes a cautious approach. ?For example, I don?t eat most sauces, as many contain either flour or soy sauce,? she says. ?I find the easiest approach is to err on the side of caution and simply request it without sauce.?
Most chefs are happy to customize meals tailored to other dietary restrictions as well, although the diner may have to wait a bit longer for his or her meal. Humes says most patrons understand the extra effort involved, and complaints are rare.
Research first
Many of those following special diets choose to research their dining options before even entering the restaurant. A number of establishments now include menus online to give patrons an idea of their choices beforehand. A quick phone call ahead of time is also a good idea.
?Stephen,? who suffers from a potentially fatal allergy to sesame in any form?seeds, paste, oil and so forth?stands outside a restaurant for a few moments before entering and sniffs for a telltale hint of sesame. If he detects it, he dines elsewhere.
Stephen always asks to speak to the chef or kitchen manager personally and also questions waitstaff. Typically, he asks whether the restaurant bakes its own bread and rolls and, if so, if they put sesame seeds on any of them. If the answer is yes, he shuns the in-house bread. Restaurants and bakeries often cook several dozen rolls at the same time, he explains, adding different toppings such as sesame or poppy seeds on a portion of the rolls. Even the minute amount of sesame that gets into plain rolls from being baked in the same oven as a seed-topped roll can make him very ill.
?I?ve had waitresses tell me, ?Don?t worry, honey. There?s just a little bit in it for flavour. It won?t even be enough to notice,?? says Stephen. ?Well, it will be and ultimately I have to protect myself.? Like Nancy, he also finds dressings and sauces to be a major concern.
Fortunately, most chefs, including Humes, have alternative recipes for many menu items. Guests with less serious food sensitivities can also request a reduced amount of the offending ingredient, although many chefs prefer to use their own recipes, which have been formulated with optimal taste in mind.
?The alternatives are very good,? Humes says, and are designed to be on par with the conventional dish in every respect. ?If everyone else is having a fancy dinner, like at the Martinique, we make sure the meal is special for the restricted diner, too,? he says?meaning the special needs diner is not relegated to a plate of plain carrots and broccoli.
Sugar?s everywhere
?Karen,? a diabetic, echoes Nancy?s and Stephen?s sentiments. ?I love salad dressings, but they can contain so much sugar! When restaurants use bottled dressings, I ask to see the bottle and I read the ingredients. In the US, the ingredients are listed in order of prevalence, from the most common to the least,? so it?s easy to tell how many sugars, and in what form, are present.
?It?s important to tell your waiter that sugar isn?t just sugar,? Karen says. ?A lot of them don?t know that sugar appears under many different names and while it may not say ?sugar? on the bottle, as far as my body is concerned, it?s sugar.? Dextrose, sucrose, corn syrup and honey are all sugars and off limits to most diabetics.
Karen strongly advocates leaving nothing to chance. She instructs the server to inform the chef of her situation and stresses the gravity of her condition and the consequences of an error. ?I tell them that just a little bit can kill me and I?m counting on them to find out for me,? she says. She feels that statements like this encourage everyone involved to be more careful.
That personal touch
While food allergies and sensitivities are always a concern, they don?t have to spoil a good vacation. Humes says that, in his experience, when diners communicate their dietary restrictions to restaurant staff, ?ninety per cent of the time they leave happy.?
And sometimes the interaction is rewarding in unexpected ways. Recently, Humes personally assisted a family of four during their entire stay at Atlantis. In the process of talking to them daily and attending to them during meals, they became friends. On the last day, ?the kids gave me a picture of me that they had drawn as a thank you gift,? he says. The drawing now occupies an honoured spot on his desk.
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