Panama Real Estate Investment Travel Information


Dealing with Allergies in Panama

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Written by Matt Landau

Saturday, November 24 2007

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Having allergies as a kid was not unlike being named something embarrassing like Skippy or Toot in that lots of people took joy in poking fun at a feat I was not directly responsible for. My body's helplessness in digesting certain foods was not a function I had control over, yet I was chastised as if being allergic was the worst decision I'd ever made in my life.

There's a clear line between not liking a food and projectile vomiting when you eat it. But oftentimes people would blur this line and misinterpret my allergies for preferences as in, he's asking for his pasta without cheese because he doesn't enjoy cheese. It was this crowd that might respond to my question of whether something had milk in it, with "oh just a little bit. You won't be able to taste it though."

Well thanks a lot, I'd think to myself. If I was looking for culinary counseling, I'd ask for it.

But as years passed in my childhood, the whole notion of picky eaters became more and more mainstream. Maybe it was science, maybe just a trend, but almost like a light switch it became cool to hate certain foods; to be fussy at the table. Vegetarians, with their hippie shirts and ratty hair, started to come out of the woodwork screaming at anyone who owned leather and asking for entrée-sized salads. Paranoid nut allergists started to spring up on every corner swearing that if a product was made in the same zip code as a walnut, their client might die. And people who couldn't tolerate dairy became artlessly known as lactards because they were clearly retarded when it came to milk and cheese. It comforted me to be called a lactard since, at least, I knew there were others I could associate with.

Over the past years, the service industry in the States has come to grips with people like me, acknowledging that severe reactions to milk and nuts and shellfish do indeed exist and are not just anal retentive clients. Perhaps it was reinforced by the vomit stains on restaurant carpets or lawsuits focused around one small shard of sharp pepper jack cheese.

In Panama, things are a little bit different. When I tell a waiter in Panama, for instance, that I am allergic to milk, she often looks at me as if I mentioned I golf with Satan. Allergic to milk? she's thinking. Why?

You see, here in Panama, being allergic to things is reserved for the more famous ones like bee stings and scorpions and jellyfish. Definitely not milk. It is for this reason, that people with basic food allergies must be very cautious when ordering food down here simply because people may not understand the extent of your allergy. Waiters, waitresses, and just about everyone else is unfamiliar with the intricacies of albumen allergies or nut evils. There are restaurants (on the other hand) which are quite sensitive to allergies, such as La Posta (off Calle Uruguay), Ozone (off Calle Uruguay), Eurasia (Bella Vista) and a number of others. Just be extremely cautious when someone answers off-the-cuff with regards to the contents of a dish. Because usually, they have no idea.

*Note: I learned recently from my good friend Nick that if you unknowingly happen to ingest something you are allergic to, and you don't happen to have an epi pen or allergy pills on you, try guzzling caffeine: apparently like five cups of coffee or lots of Coke can have similar medical effects.

Good old 'no peanuts' image taken from tolland.k12.ct.us