It Looks Like a Plate Full of Death

I love trying local food when I travel. I firmly believe one of the best ways to understand a place is to eat what the people who live there eat. Find the little restaurant down the alley. Order the thing you can’t pronounce. Point at something on the menu and say, “That.” Trust the waiter. Make questionable decisions. This philosophy has led me to some truly wonderful meals.

There is, however, one small complication. Some food would like to kill me.

I have a rather peculiar collection of food allergies: beer, fish, and honey. Not peanuts. Not shellfish. Not one of those allergies people are accustomed to hearing about. Nope. Apparently my immune system went through the international travel brochure and specifically selected things that would make my preferred destinations as inconvenient as possible.

Germany? Beer.

Southeast Asia? Fish.

Crete? Honey. So. Much. Honey.

This seems poorly planned.

Crete is one of my favorite places on earth. The sea is ridiculous, the mountains are gorgeous, the food is wonderful, the people are lovely, and approximately 47 million bees are apparently working around the clock to make sure I remain alert.

Cretans love their honey. And rightly so. Beekeeping has been part of life here for thousands of years, and Cretan honey is everywhere. Markets are filled with jars of it. Roadside stands sell it. Shops sell enormous jars of it. There’s thyme honey and herb honey and honey with nuts and honey in desserts and honey over yogurt and honey poured lovingly over things that, until moments before, were perfectly safe for me to eat.

I am fairly certain that if I stand still on Crete for more than fifteen minutes, someone will drizzle honey over me and sprinkle me with walnuts.

Which would be charming, except that I enjoy breathing.

And then there is Sfakian pie. Oh, Sfakian pie. Sfakian pie is a traditional Cretan cheese pie from the Sfakia region, made with a thin dough and soft local cheese. It comes to the table warm and golden and beautiful, and then someone takes wonderful Cretan honey and drizzles it all over the top.

Everyone tells me it is delicious. I believe them.

From over here.

Because everyone else looks at Sfakian pie and sees a beautiful golden pastry filled with creamy Cretan cheese and glistening with honey.

I see a plate full of death. Beautiful death, certainly. Artisanal death. Locally sourced, lovingly prepared, farm-to-table death made by someone’s yiayia from a recipe that has been passed down for seventeen generations.

But death nonetheless.

There’s always a tiny conversation happening inside my head when one appears.

Look at that. That looks amazing. Yes.

We should try it. No.

Just a little bite? WE ENJOY HAVING AN AIRWAY.

Coffee it is.

Honey is particularly sneaky because on Crete, anything sweet is immediately suspicious. Dessert arrives and while everyone else is thinking, “That looks delicious,” I’m conducting a forensic investigation. Is that shiny because of syrup? Is that syrup made with honey? What is inside that pastry? Why is that walnut looking at me? WHO GLAZED THIS?

I have become the Sherlock Holmes of dessert.

Honey is only one member of my little Allergy Triumvirate of Doom.

I’m also allergic to beer, which was an especially useful thing to discover before going to Germany, a country that has occasionally been known to enjoy a beer.

A little bit. Here and there. Just once in awhile…

Fortunately, I can be around beer. I just can’t consume it, which means the beer itself isn’t usually the problem. The problem is when someone decides beer needs to go into something that wasn’t beer to begin with.

Beer cheese? No.

Beer-battered anything? No.

Beer bread? Why?

Beer gravy? What did the gravy do to deserve this?

Random sauce nobody thought to mention contains beer? Fantastic. We have entered another round of What’s In This and Will Kim Survive It?

Then there’s fish, which adds an entirely different level of adventure when traveling in Southeast Asia, where fish sauce has mastered the ancient art of appearing in absolutely everything while remaining completely invisible.

“Does this have fish?”

“No fish.”

“Fish sauce?”

Pause. Slightly worried expression. “Ah. Yes.”

Of course it does.

Fish sauce is the tiny salty ninja of my culinary world. I don’t see it. I don’t know it’s there. But it knows I’m there.

At this point, I have accepted that somewhere on Earth there must be one perfect dish designed specifically for me: beer-battered fish with a honey glaze.

The Final Boss.

My culinary arch-nemesis.

If it is ever placed in front of me, I will not need an EpiPen. I will need a priest, a hazmat team, and someone standing nearby ringing a bell shouting, “UNCLEAN!”

All of this means traveling with me occasionally involves more discussion about ingredients than most people probably consider necessary. I carry my EpiPen. I ask questions. I learn the important food words in whatever country I’m visiting. I read labels. I ask again when I’m not sure. And I have become very good at explaining that when I say I am allergic to something, I don’t mean, “Ew, I don’t care for honey.”

I mean, “My immune system is a drama queen and has decided this perfectly innocent substance requires the complete shutdown of the production.”

There is a difference.

Most restaurants we’ve encountered while traveling have been absolutely wonderful about it. Sometimes the waiter disappears into the kitchen. Sometimes the chef comes out. Sometimes three people gather around the table while we attempt an international game of Allergy Charades. Sometimes I pull out my phone. Sometimes everyone becomes very serious because they realize that I am not simply being a fussy American who has declared war on condiments.

I appreciate every single person who takes the time to make sure I can eat safely.

Because I don’t want allergies to stop me from eating local food. I don’t want to travel halfway around the world and survive entirely on crackers I brought from home. I want the tiny taverna. I want the family recipe. I want the weird thing on the menu. I want to point at something I have never seen before and ask, “What’s that?”

I just need the answer to not be “fish covered in beer and honey.”

Sometimes that means everyone else gets the famous local specialty while I sit there staring at it with bitter resentment. Sometimes it means asking the same question three different ways. Sometimes it means discovering that the innocent-looking dessert is approximately 73 percent honey held together by pastry and optimism.

And sometimes it means carrying an EpiPen through beautiful places and hoping it remains the most expensive travel accessory I never have to use.

But I’m still going somewhere.

I’m still eating strange things.

I’m still making questionable menu decisions.

I’m just keeping one eye on the bees.

And if anyone ever offers me beer-battered honey fish, I’m leaving the country.

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