The letter states the restrictions are due to allergy concerns (a stupid concession of its own), but I’ve never heard of a person with a pork allergy.
There is a child at my Granddaughters Grade School that has a peanut allergy. It’s a real pain for everyone else as nothing made with peanut butter or Peanut oil is permitted in the school. I asked the parent of the kid and she was up-front about it. The kid is so allergic to peanut products of any kind that he carries an epi-pen all of the time and they can’t go out to eat at most restaurants, etc.
I kind of felt sorry for them but the kid is a real upbeat kind of little guy.
I also had a relative that had a shellfish allergy... She was a real Pain-in-the-butt to go out to dinner with. Always lecturing the wait staff and management about keeping cooking utensils and pots and pans separate so that people like her don’t get hit with an allergic reaction.
Now as far as being allergic to pork? That’s a new one for me. Religious objections, yeah. A real allergy... no.
Yep.
I had a co-worker who was deathly allergic to peanuts. I sat two offices down from him, and was eating a PB&J for lunch. He stopped by my office on his way out the door, and was obviously in quite a bit of respiratory distress. He quickly explained the situation, and I never brought PB&J into that workplace again. No problem.
However - if I was THAT desperately allergic to things (like your relative with the shellfish allergy), I'd not eat out. Not worth risking my life over.
I get a feeling that some of it is "Hey, lookit me" -ism. I've got a co-worker like that. She's "Got a Gluten allergy", yet she has no fear of hitting the cookie / donut tray at work .... but in a restaurant, she'll quiz the poor waiter about every ingredient that might or might not be in the kitchen.
And you're right. Pork Allergy? Neeeever heard of it.
I consider it my problem. If someone serves shrimp, crab, etc., I refrain from eating them, generally becoming a vegetarian for the night. Not a big deal to me, as I am the one with the issue, not them.
I stopped going to Japanese steak houses, because the style of cooking doesn't suit my requirements. I would consider myself to be a royal pain in the ass, if I started telling them to clean the griddle and all utensils every time they switched from shrimp to steak.
This issue with kids and hyper peanut allergies is an amazingly recent phenomenon. So much so that I think its mainly the parents creating a psychosomatic reaction in the kids. Yes, I believe Timmy is allergic to peanuts, I just don't believe that if Billy eats a PB&J 10’ away that Timmy is having a reaction from it. I think his mother has turned Timmy into a hypochondriac, and she herself is milking it for all its worth, by creating demands on everyone else.