Weekend Argus (Saturday Edition)
Celebrity cooks lament age of allergies
Keep that tail up
SHE GREW up in a time of strict war rationing, where most people simply ate what they were given.
Now veteran TV cook Mary Berry laments the fact that dinner party menus today are dictated by people’s allergies.
The 82-year-old said the rise in dietary requirements had made a big difference to hosting, as rather than cooking whatever you wanted, you now had to ask about allergies.
She told Radio Times: “The big difference today is that we have to ask about allergies. That never used to happen.
“You just cooked whatever you wanted to. You have to respect that people need different meals now.”
Berry’s comments come after chef Raymond Blanc blasted the “fashionable” obsession with having a food intolerance. He told The
Daily Mail last year that up to 50 customers claimed to have issues every night at his Oxfordshire restaurant, which has two Michelin stars.
He said: “In my restaurant, Belmond Le Manoir aux Quat’Saisons, I look at my board when I look at the order and it’s horrifying – you have about 50 people who have an allergy or a food intolerance and we take each seriously.”
French-born Blanc, who moved to Britain 45 years ago and opened his Oxfordshire restaurant more than three decades ago, added: “We are a kitchen, not a hospital. Of course, now, if you don’t have an allergy, you’re nobody.”
There has been a surge in the popularity of “clean eating” – eating only unprocessed foods – in recent years, following celebrities who have restrictive diets. – Daily Mail LONDON: Owning a pet may help patients with mental health problems such as depression and anxiety, according to a review published in the journal BMC Psychiatry.
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