While I absolutely 100% agree with this, and have had this conversation several times with multiple teachers (“Please, just email me a list of birthdays so I can send her with a gluten free cupcake those Fridays. I do NOT want her diet to be anyone else’s headache!”) the problem is that by and large, people suck. Their kid, who just wants to be like every other kid, grabs the mozarella ball when she thinks no one’s looking, and then spends all night throwing up. Or, worse, the nut allergic kid goes into shock and stops breathing. It’s all well and good for us, now, on the internet to say, “Too bad, so sad, dumbass 4th grader should know better.” (And, in fact, my second grader knows that if she sneaks gluten, she’s got only herself to blame and will be cleaning up her own vomit at 2 am.)
It’s just as easy for a distraught parent with a lawyer to point out that their kid’s IEP specifically stated the need for a nut free classroom and the school did not provide that, or an overtired mother to call and scream at the teacher for allowing her kid to have cheese.
That being said: I’d go with store bought tomato and basil bruschetta (look in the refrigerated section near hummus and guacamole), olives and salami with gluten free crackers.
Just consider providing such a snack a good sleuthing challenge. And use it as an opportunity to teach your kid what some people have to go through every day in order to eat.
I’m gluten intolerant but not a celiac (my symptoms are different) so I do know how challenging it can be. I bring my own food to dinner parties because even my own family thinks like Sicks Ate and that I will find SOMETHING on the table I can eat. After several years of it, I just turn down the invites. I hate showing up and discovering that “we” are having lasagna.
Prosciutto and melon is a great suggestion, but good luck finding good melons at this time of year. Perhaps you should bring dried figs, drizzled with honey. What about goat cheese? Is that allowable? It is often not an issue for folk with dairy problems.
Want to be a real hit? bring granita (similar to sorbet). Be sure to make one colored blue so they can all stick their tongues out at each other.
Exactly my thought too. What’s the use, especially since most, if not all authentic Italian dishes contain at least one of those categories? Prosciutto and melon isn’t exactly a benchmark Italian dish that’s kid friendly. Neither are marinated artichokes or other veggies :shakes head:
I think a lot of people missed the part where the OP said it had to be store bought. Can’t do prosciutto and melon, granita or anything else like that because you can’t just unwrap the package and hand it to the kids.
The beautiful neighbor girl had an allergy when she was a child and they had to give her a battery of tests. They finally discovered she was allergic to TOMATOES. So anything with tomatoes was out of the question for her - no ketchup, no “normal” pizza, no “normal” pasta dishes.
That said, this girl would never have expected all of her classmates to not eat tomatoes just because she couldn’t. She learned at a very early age not to eat them or any tomato products and that was that.
I am somewhat perplexed that this school project involves finding foods that every single student can eat, will want to eat, and is healthy to eat. Good fucking luck with that.
I get violently ill at the smell of certain Mexican food (got sick on it at an early age) and cannot step into any Mexican restaurants and have to leave the kitchen at work if someone plops in that kind of food in the microwave. Just because I can’t eat it doesn’t mean I would ever suggest they should not eat it/prepare it - it is not their problem, it is my problem. I would also never expect a host/hostess to avoid making this food at a party and would simply stay away from the kitchen or politely take a short walk during dinner/buffet time. Kids should learn the same thing from an early age.
I see what you mean. The melon is out because you can’t cut it in the classroom and you certainly don’t want to pay the asking price of pre-cut melon. Wrapping the prosciutto around it is a kid task though.
I wasn’t thinking of making the granita. I would buy it from a shop.
DMark, they aren’t expecting kids to always have to follow other kids dietary needs. Just for special occasions. I’m sure the kids with food differences cope on regular days but maybe they want to celebrate a special food event with the other kids instead of always having to be an outsider.
They wouldn’t necessarily be outsiders. My kid’s school used to have an “international day” every year, and no one kid ever tried all the snacks. Just because someone can eat cheese doesn’t mean they will. And cutting out gluten, dairy and nuts doesn’t even mean that every kid will be able to eat everything. Prosciutto and melon sounds good- but no one would have known that my son can’t eat melon or many other fresh fruits.And they probably wouldn’t have known if he couldn’t eat olives, or tomatoes or artichokes …Because there wasn’t any reason for them to know - lunches were brought from home and fresh fruit, tomatoes, olives etc weren’t popular birthday treats.
If it really is a matter of a couple of kids needing gluten-free and others needing dairy -free or nut-free , then you assign some kids to bring gluten-free , others nut-free and still others dairy free.Otherwise, there’s no point in bothering at all- you’ll simply have parents waste money on foods like giardiniera or marinated artichokes that most 4th graders won’t touch.
Meringue cookies are gluten free, dairy free and nut free and can be bought in packages at most grocery stories in the bakery section. They aren’t specifically Italian. But Italians make them and eat them.
It seems it is only the OP’s kid who is doing Italy; others will be representing other places, but under the same restrictions. So yeah, the end result is likely a bunch of wasted food, and a class of kids who learn that they mostly dislike ethnic/international foods.