Legume of Doom

I’d like to take a moment to talk about my relationship with my greatest culinary nemesis--the peanut. This diabolical little legume is a one of the “Big 8” food allergens which, combined, account for roughly 90% of all food reactions in the U.S.  The possibility of stumbling upon this deadly ingredient hovers like an angry cloud over most of my culinary experiences, the
evil peanuts threatening to rain down upon me at any moment and send me into the throes of anaphylaxis.

    As a lover of all things edible, this dietary restriction weighs me down like a true physical handicap.  It’s like my tongue has a lame leg and as a result there is a huge range of experiences that it can’t share with the world.  For instance, Thai restaurants are virtually off-limits to me.  I remember my first (and only) Thai spring roll: it was delicious. The crunchy vegetables and soft wrapper were delightful--that is, until my body began to reject the subtle poison that was cleverly laced throughout the dish and I proceeded to regurgitate my dinner right back onto the plate.

    I wrote about aversions in my last blog, but I failed to mention how food allergies may factor into one’s aversions. I can think of only two instances in which my natural instinct of self-preservation would affect my dinner order. I can think of only two foods which literally put the fear of death in me: blowfish and peanuts.

    The fear of food is a strange and unfamiliar emotion for most. Imagine that you’ve just ingested a Japanese blowfish and a young amatuer chef comes to your table and congratulates you on eating the first blowfish he’s ever prepared. How do you feel about what you’ve just eaten? Do you feel the panic creeping up on you? Do you feel the poison stewing in your belly, begging to diffuse throughout your bloodstream? Do you feel the certainty of life fading away? I get the same feeling every time I’m offered a home-baked cookie.

    I realize that there are worse afflictions than a food allergy. However, given the response that most people have when I pass on an offering of peanut M&M’s, one would think that I’m in great suffering. “How do you live,” people ask me. I’d like to take this moment to assure the world that I do, indeed, survive without peanuts. In fact, I survive better without them.

    For some reason, when I tell the average person that I can’t eat peanuts, they follow up with the question, “Does that mean you can’t eat peanut butter?” Then, after I’ve explained that peanut butter is, in fact, made almost entirely of peanuts and that no, I can’t eat it either, the generic response is, “Peanut butter is so delicious! You have no idea what you’re missing.” I have yet to understand why the average person feels compelled to rub dirt in my wounds. Do they ask a blind man how he lives without seeing the sunset?

    Contrary to common belief, I’ve tasted peanuts, peanut butter, peanut flour, and peanut oil. Contrary to popular opinion, I hate peanuts--the look, the taste, the smell. You’d be surprised, when a particular food is associated with swift death, how quickly you develop a distaste for that food. Even the stench of peanuts makes me feel sick. It reminds me of sitting in the cafeteria at Scobee Elementary, trying my best to shield myself from flying peanut butter cracker particles.  I was assigned to sit next to a buck-tooth girl named Meghan. Every day she ate her damned peanut butter crackers, exclaiming at how delicious they were, spewing the sickly-sweet scent of poison into the air, smiling to reveal the peanut butter and cracker particles clinging to her big protruding teeth.

    Back then I used to hope that I would grow out of my peanut allergy--that I would bite into a PB&J one day, on a whim, and nothing horrific would happen (of course, I also hoped that I would grow up to be a velociraptor). I suppose that both would still be nice, but I really don’t need to be reconciled with that fiendish food, the peanut.  I’ve been living with the allergy for my entire life, and it’s a part of my identity. I read the ingredients label of suspicious foods, I carry a shot of epinephrine in the glovebox of my car, and I steer clear of bake sales. My name is Jon and my problem with peanuts is really no problem at all.