Dear Head Chef of Berea Summer Camp.
One year ago, I entered Camp Berea with anticipation and excitement.
But the simple act of eating food would end up souring my experience.
You, the chef, assured my sister and I that we’d be taken care of. He said he was an EMT, after all. That we had nothing to fear. But after 14 years of living with severe egg, peanut, and tree nut allergies, I had learned that the most confident people often were the worst at taking care of us.
How I wish I could have been proven wrong.
But later that week, I found myself face to face with my parents, having had to drop everything from their vacation to Quebec to drive 200 miles to make sure we were safe. In their hands were grocery bags. They were filled with everything from bread, to lunch meat, to pasta, to Sunflower Seed butter (peanut butter was a no-go).
They came because we were scared. And for good reason. They came because you failed. You were not keeping us safe. You told us we’d be fine, but you’d say it after making a mistake that could have put our health and lives at risk. You discredited our life-threatening disease and made it clear it wasn’t important to you. The New York Times suggests talking to the chef when dealing or traveling with allergies, but I can’t talk to the chef if you won’t listen to what I have to say.
You told me to just trust you, but I can’t trust someone who would tell us it “wasn’t a big deal” when you dropped eggy pizza on the things we were supposed to eat. I can’t trust you when you say that “the food is all fine for you to eat”, when you refuse to show me ingredients labels for what you used to make it. I can’t trust someone who confuses my egg allergy for a dairy allergy!
I don’t know what caused you to treat us like that, but I can shine some light on what could have caused you to treat us like that.
For example, many chefs get fed up with people claiming they have allergies, when the customers just don’t want that type of food. In Patrick Friesen’s view, “Can people with dietary requirements start knowing what you can and can’t eat? Shellfish allergy but loves oyster sauce. Gluten free but loves gluten as long as it’s not a piece of bread […] Sort your s**t out and let your waiter know. You make it really damn hard for people with actual allergies and dietaries to go out to eat.”
Maybe to you, the annoyance of stupid requests isn’t worth the effort of taking allergy requests seriously. While I understand that it can be infuriating to end up wasting your time and effort, especially when your pay depends, is it really worth sacrificing someone else’s safety or life for your convenience? If you were taking an early morning run, and I was standing in your way on the sidewalk, would you really push me into a busy street?
From a concerned camper,
Tayo Foose
