Living Without

As I was driving through town at age 18, a farm stand caught my eye. I stopped and spent my last 2 quarters for a handful of ripe, juicy plums. They were the perfection of fruit in late summer. Beautiful color, delightful texture, and amazing sweetness. As I ate the first one and then the second, the juice ran down my arms and onto the steering wheel. Inconvenient, but not worth stopping the feast. But then, as I bit into the third one, something else happenned. My teeth started to feel funny. And my ears itched. The inside of my nose, too. The itching became so intense, it slipped over into pain. I had to pull over because I couldn't see through the tears, and the painful itching just kept getting more intense. I counldn't scratch it though. It was inside my gums, my nose, and my ears. I had never before experienced anything like it, but I would again. Over the course of that fruit season, every time I ate any fruit from the apple family, the itching returned. Apples, pears, peaches, nectarines, apricots. The strangest thing was, I could eat them in pies or in ice cream, or canned, just not fresh.

At 20, I spent three weeks in France, the pinnacle of epicurean culture. I loved it, but my body did not. This time, I traced the nasty skin rash to milk and cheese, which abound in French restaurant cuisine. Another category of foods had to leave my diet.

Shortly thereafter, I experienced the itching in my face again, this time, though, it was nuts. Walnuts, almonds, hazelnuts, pecans. Sigh, more allergies? When I thought about it, it made sense: the nuts and fruits that give me trouble all come from deciduous trees. Peanuts and citrus fruits are fine.

I usually try not to talk about all of the things to which I am allergic in one conversation. People tend to look at me and say, "You poor thing! What do you eat?" Well, the answer is quite a lot. As a consequence of these standard American staples of freshness being taken out of my diet, I eat a lot of citrus fruit. I eat cheeses and yogurts from alternative milks (sheep, goat, water buffalo).

The transition was not without its heartache, though. I don't miss apples. I used to eat them, but I never enjoyed them. The same goes for most nuts and cow's milk by the glass. There are some things I do really miss, though, like cheese that really melts. Fresh pears, too. I look at them in the supermarket and sigh. If only. That itching reaction, though, is stage1 anaphylaxis and could someday go farther and threaten my life. It's not worth it, and poached pears are yummy, just not the same.

The first year without milk was particularly difficult. I hadn't yet discovered alternative milks or that I could have them, and I was a college student, so I couldn't have afforded them anyway. As I was learning to read labels, I was constantly discovering things that I could never have again. Bakery doughnuts. Doritos (okay, they're not so great, but it was a tragedy at the time). New York style cheese pizza cut into big triangle slices that you fold in half and the grease runs down your hand. That next summer, I bought creamsicles from the ice cream truck for my nieces and realized I could never enjoy one again. A creamsicle, it's not something you want to eat everyday, but it was a fond childhood memory that I now cannot revisit.

I have mourned these losses. When other people enjoy the pears or the pizza in front of me, I still get wistful. Sometimes, I even cheat a little on the pizza. That symptom isn't life threatening, though I do pay for the pleasure later. But for the most part, I just live without. I eat my fruit poached, baked, or canned. On the occasions that I buy the pricey alternative cheeses, I really savor them.

Recently a blogger whom I often read posted a lovely bread pudding recipe that she said she would never make again because of the milk and cream it calls for. I commented my standard sub of soy and heavy cream for milk in a custard recipe. She and another reader popped back about the way that soy or oatmilk just don't taste the same in baking.

Well, of course they don't. They're different substances. I rather like the nuttiness that soymilk adds, especially since it's the only way I get nuttiness into a recipe nowadays. In my culinary life, I've mourned my losses and found ways to cope. Generally, I don't even think about the things I can't eat any longer. I've adjusted the way I shop and I know which brands and products are contraband.

Most of the time, I'm happy. Just do me the favor of enjoying your ripe, juicy pear elsewhere.