We will be moving to Taipei to teach at TAS starting at the end of July. My wife is DEATHLY allergic to shellfish in any form. Any advice on how to survive a culture that uses shrimp paste and shells as seasoning and may not recognize them as an separate ingredient? what is the best way to tell folks prior to ordering food? :s
[quote=“bill tas”]We will be moving to Taipei to teach at TAS starting at the end of July. My wife is DEATHLY allergic to shellfish in any form. Any advice on how to survive a culture that uses shrimp paste and shells as seasoning and may not recognize them as an separate ingredient? what is the best way to tell folks prior to ordering food? :s[/quote]Sorry Bill, I don’t think you can be sure of getting food that has absolutely no contamination with shellfish products. Even if the dish itself does not have any shellfish ingredients, the food may have come into contact with other food or utensils that do have those ingredients.
Your best bet would be to go to Buddhist vegetarian restaurants. But even then I don’t think you could be one hundred percent sure.
I think you are thinking of Thai food…
Yes, they don’t use fish paste/sauce here as a rule. I’m not allergic to all shellfish but I’m very allergic to anything with tentacles, and squid is unfortunately a very common ingredient here. However, it’s not too difficult to avoid. 18 years here and never had a “squid attack.”
Ack!! Thar’s a squid an ma face!
You would have to tell the restaurant personnel in no uncertain terms how serious her allergy is.
Of course, as you know, you can always cook your own food.
There is a small dried shrimp that they don’t think of as food. They are a spice like salt. Even if you tell them no sea food (Bo yow Hei Shen) you might get them. Also many foods are cooked in the same wok so be very cairful.
Right, I forgot about that. You often find it scattered through cabbage and stuff like that and yes, many vendors won’t even consider them to be “seafood.” It might be wise for your wife to stick strictly to Buddhist vegetarian stuff until she can find her way around (they’re the restaurants that have the reverse-swastica sign out front and definitely won’t have any meat or fish at all.)
I’m sure there’ll be some kind of liasion person up there at TAS who’ll be able to help you out, maybe with some flashcard-type things with your wife’s problem written out in clear Chinese that she can carry with her.
I urge extreme caution. She should stick to the few good restaurants she knows.