What was this ingredient?

[Darkdiamond]

My friend invited me to her home for some home made South East Asian food. It was absolutely delicious but something happened to me as I was eating it. My nose blocked up, like suddenly and drastically. One moment I could breathe easily though my nose and the next I couldn't sniff at all; then my nose started pouring like a tap. The next day, my face was all quite swollen, especially around my eyes. I drank copious amounts of water and it took the full day for my face to go back to normal. It was a week ago and I've been strangely snotty ever since.

I know this wasn't a cold as it happened in a few seconds, one minute I was fine and the next I wasn't. It felt like I had a reaction. I eat chilli and I'm always OK (spicy foods are normally fine). I used to have a similar reaction when I drank wine (I don't drink alcohol at all any more) and my nose would totally block up leaving me with a swollen face the next day.

I don't want to risk offending my friend by asking. Her food was absolutely stunning but I think something set me off and I don't know if there is an ingredient used in South East Asian cuisine that is known for causing allergies or being full of histamine (this is what it felt like). I'd obviously like to know if I have an intolerance to something for future reference.

Any ideas?

I explained before that I only have a reaction if I eat the shell fish in its original form, eg prawn or crabsticks. I just don't eat it if it's in something. I've never had a reaction if I don't eat the actual fish, if that makes sense. It hasn't been serious, just unpleasant if I eat prawns or mussels (vomiting, diarrhea).

There was aubergine!!! But I'm usually fine with it.
I'm going to have to ask her.

Allergies can get more intense over exposures. So what started as an “original state” allergy can eventually become an allergy that is life threatening in cases of cross contamination.

There's no whole shellfish in crab sticks. It's white fish (e.g. pollock etc.) and a tiny amount of shellfish extract for flavouring. Whereas shrimp pastes tend to have ground-up whole shrimp in them.

well obvs it wasn't clear!

There is often a lot of tamarind in Sri Lankan food. Could it be that?

I reckon sulphites. And possibly in coconut milk if you were eating Sri Lankan food. Wine has sulphites too.

Lots of good suggestions everyone! I'll ask my friend if she used shrimp paste or rice wine as I think those would be the main culprits. A private clinic near me also does allergy testing so I'm going to get that sorted. Maybe my previously light allergies are getting worse. I also have a dust/cat allergy but I don't think that will kill me 😀

Haha I avoid crabsticks as i thought it had crab, so didn't know. I avoid anything with 'crab' in the title as the last time I ate crab, I was vomiting so much that a doctor came to my house to give me an injection. Ah, the 90s!

If the reaction also happened with wine, could it be a sulphite allergy. If you google it, you will see what I mean. Your friend could have added wine to her dish or dried fruit perhaps, or sulphites are sometimes in white foods that have been sulphited to keep them white or in shellfish/ crustaceans. Or bottled lemon juice. Other big culprits for sulphites are bright orange non organic apricots and sausages tend to contain sodium metabisulphite.

I’ll throw in Tamarind

From the first post I had wondered about tamarind because I once found it very intense. It was in Sri Lanka funnily enough. Didn't have a full on reaction though.

Sorry to be that person, but Sri Lanka is in south Asia, not south east Asia. There is quite a big difference between these two regions when it comes to cuisine. Sri Lankan food has Maldive fish across a lot of dishes but you're less likely to find things like oyster sauce and shrimp paste in it. You'll also find nuts in Sri Lankan food, especially cashews. Hope you can identify the culprit!

My husband sometimes cooks Asian food with rice wine, and other types of “wine” vinegars etc. I wonder if it’s something akin to that if you’re allergic to wine. 🤷🏻‍♀️

@ChiliFiend I too assumed the OP meant a Chinese meal/Thai/Japanese/Vietnamese etc when they said South East Asian meal. Like many others I thought, MSG, fish sauce, shrimp paste etc could be the cause.

Quite different ingredients to the ones in a Sri Lankan meal, which I too would have thought was called Sth Asian or just Sri Lankan!

Either way, I hope the OP gets proper NHS/private, not online, testing done and finds the cause, before it exacerbates.

Could be histamine intolerance. It has made me very wheezy in the past and my eyelids swell up. I also get hives on wrists if I combine shellfish with alcohol. I take allergy tablets daily:

So not allergy to specific thing but overload of histamine with the food and alcohol combination.

Rihaakuru? It's Maldivian originally, but it has really high histamine levels. (Not the same as the Maldive fish mentioned upthread)

Did it have almonds or other tree nuts in it?

You just had a major allergic reaction. I’d bet fish allergy.

You need to be much more careful with what you eat. The next reaction could be much more serious.

Asafoetida had this kind of reaction for a friend of mine.

Fair enough — makes perfect sense you'd have avoided them.

I just wanted to mention it, because if you'd reacted to crab sticks in the past, it would've meant you could either be more sensitive to shellfish than you'd realised, or also have an allergy to something else that's in them.

Fish sauce, do you have a seafood allergy maybe? And sometimes they just creep up on you.

You had a bad allergic reaction.

Tell your GP, especially that your airways were swollen, and they should refer to to an allergy clinic.

Not ‘the allergy testing industry’, an actual doctor in an NHS hospital.

Which works.

If you have a food allergy you should tell someone if they're cooking for you!

If there wasn't any shrimp paste, lots of South East asian food is full of fermented ingredients which are high in histamine and can trigger reactions if you're sensitive.