What it's like to travel with a nut allergy

Jessica Pan knows the word for 'peanut' in seven languages - and counting

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On a recent Emirates flight, a brother and sister who both suffer from severe nut allergies were told that they should quarantine themselves in the lavatories for seven hours while the rest of the passengers were served a curry with nuts.

My own peanut allergy is severe, and while I can travel on aeroplanes near people who are eating peanuts, it makes me uncomfortable, can cause hives and irritates my asthma (not that I say anything – I just move away). One time a relative of mine, while eating a handful of peanuts, spoke excitedly and some of his spit flew onto my face. My lip swelled up within minutes.

I know the word for peanut in Spanish, German, Italian, Greek and Icelandic. When I lived in Beijing for two years, the first sentence I learned to master in Mandarin was, “If I eat peanuts, I will die.” Then, to really get the message across, I would mime death. I’d clutch my throat, roll my eyes back and stick my tongue out. My audience, usually Chinese waiters, would laugh or look bewildered, but it was the most effective way to get the point across. It was blunt, but it had to be. I had a severe peanut allergy and I struggled to convey the gravity of the situation to locals in China, where nut allergies are rare.

At dinner on my first night in Beijing, I told the waiter, “I’m allergic to peanuts. I don’t want peanuts.” He brought over my food and I peered into a dish, which was sprinkled in peanuts. “Peanuts?” I asked, pointing, knowing they were peanuts. He glanced at the dish and said, “Just a little.”

“Just a little” is the difference between alive and dead. Between the best holiday ever and an emergency trip to the hospital. I couldn’t settle for “just a little” and that’s how my song and death dance routine was born.

Living in China for two years and travelling abroad with a hidden nut allergy meant that I’ve learned a few survival strategies along the way, though some of them I learned the hard way.

Friends who travel with me know that they must be my designated “tasters”. Most often, this task is left to my poor husband. So many holidays, so many memories, and so many moments of me shouting in his face, “Do you taste peanuts? Do you?!” A curry on a beach in Malaysia, hot pot in Chengdu, a baklava on a balcony in Greece, all with me staring at him intently, praying for the green light.

Maybe I should just stay home and not travel, but I love Asia and I really, really love Asian food. Instead, I take precautions: I nearly always carry an EpiPen with me. I also have a routine I do when I meet new friends or colleagues: I show them where I keep my EpiPen and I say, “Guys, just not through the heart, OK?” Then I tell them the ultra-important part: they can jab the straight pen through my jeans. “Please, for the love of God, do not take my trousers off,” I tell virtual strangers upon meeting them, waving my bag of medicine in their face.

I try my best to avoid peanuts, but they lurk in so many dishes. I never order massaman curry, desserts with praline, anything with mole sauce, trail mix, granola or Thai salads. No to anything that even looks like satay, no to exotic alcoholic spirits. All foreign chocolate must be studied meticulously.

And yet, slip-ups happen. After eating muesli for breakfast in Paris when I was 17, I felt the menacing tingle on my throat later onboard my school group’s bus. I sprinted through the doors and doubled over just in time to puke right in front of the Eiffel Tower.

The puking bit is actually fine. It’s the waiting bit that is the worst. It’s looking for hives on your tongue and swelling in your lips and wondering, “Is this the stupid mistake that ends my life?”

I recently had to learn the Polish for peanut, frantically searching for it on Google Translate after carelessly taking a bite of chocolate in my hotel room last summer, although I already knew it was in the chocolate. It was that same ominous tingle on my tongue and my throat, followed by hot fear racing through my body.

Look, I know allergies are boring. While visiting Koh Samui, I mentioned my peanut allergy so much that the Thai staff at my hotel greeted me every morning with, “Hello, Miss No Peanut!”

I’m going to Indonesia this autumn, and my cycle of precautions will begin again. I will learn the Indonesian word for peanut. I will say it to waiters, market stall owners, grocery store clerks and chefs – and then I will mime death for extra measure. Because it’s better to act it out than experience the real thing.