How do you deal with Secondary school cookery - multiple allegies?

[alison222]

DS (11) started secondary school last week. First cookery lesson - no request to take in ingredients - cooking boiled egg and toast fingers. - DS allergic to egg nuts fish seafood and sesame. He told the teacher and so boiled pasta instead. OK so far.
He cam home with instructions to look up a website for the recipes for the rest of the term.
This week is spicy scrambled eggs, then various other recipes through the term including egg - Pancakes! biscuits with eggs! plus nearly every time they say you can have nuts as an optional ingredient.

I have contacted the teacher and had an e-mail back telling me to feel free to substitute ingredients. That is all well and good - but spicy eggs without the eggs? Also that he cannot guarantee that DS will not come in to contact with other allergens - ie another year group will be cooking seafood.
Now unlike some of you I do cook in my kitchen with things DS is allergic to - just not at the same time as he is eating with DH and I and I scrub everything clean.
How do I go back to the teacher and say that provided the hygiene in school is good it should be OK - they have offered a separate workstation away from the others to avoid contamination - is this sufficient?

Just looking for opinions on what works and what doesn't really.

My opinion - and it is nothing more than that - is that you should look at what they are cooking in terms of why they are cooking it - eg is spicy eggs a breakfast thing, and what could you substitute? Or are they cooking with protein, so maybe something with cheese would be appropriate? The teacher seems to be trying to be reasonable, and I would have thought that a separate workstation should be sufficient. If you are at all worried, though, write to check with the teacher that it will have been properly cleaned - would your son be able to wipe it over himself before he starts?

Most Food Technology teachers will be very aware of allergy issues and the potential danger of your son coming into contact with ingredients that would cause him a problem, and now that you have been in contact with her, I would assume that she would take care.

Thank you for replying.
We have now sorted out with the teacher that this weeks lesson is about knife skills so he is going to use the pepper and onions in the original recipe and turn it to rattitoulle.
The teacher spoke to him and asked him if he wanted a separate workstation and he said yes. They had previously spoken to him about handling allergic ingredients and he said no the allergies were too serious to them so I think he is handling it well himself.
We did however have a reaction at home yesterday we think we had handled our lemon juice bottle after touching fish ( another allergy!) and he had pancakes and a swollen lip afterwards. He is therefore right about not handling ingredients to which he has an allergy.
Will contact the teacher and let HIM know.

My sisters boys are both at secondary now & have already been given a booklet for the terms cooking, listing each recipe & ingredients. Could your school do something similar so you have a bit more warning on what is coming your way?
Maybe go in & chat about substitutions for either ingredients or a whole recipe if need be.
I assume he has any meds (piriton/epipen) in his school bag/classroom with him if he needs them?

I am now looking at the rest of the term looking for subsitutions.
Recipies for GOOD egg free pancakes gratefully received.
Also for subsitutions for chocolate in the chocolate fridge cake. Apparently this is all about "the properties of ingredients( 70%+ cacao for example) and how this effects flavour, texture, cost and nutrition."
I also need a biscuit that can be made with no egg for "jammy biscuits".

Jammy biscuits:
www.piginthekitchen.co.uk/2009/05/breaking-my-word-jammy-biscuits-egg.html

Can't you just omit the egg from the pancake recipe? Use SR instead, or mashed banana/apple purée. Maybe a trial run at home first, see if they're ok?

I thought the higher %cocoa was less likely to have any type of dairy & some are even soya (lechtin) free too, would this be ok?

Hope the rest of term isn't so stressful for you both!

Pancakes work fine without the egg.

Holland and barrett have chocolate suitable for different allergies.

Would have thought could just do basic shortbread biscuit recipe instead of eggy recipe.

Tofu is often scrambled instead of eggs.

Vegan websites very good for egg free recipes, lemon cake on this site www.parsleysoup.co.uk/ is fantastic we still eat even though ds2 outgrown his egg allergy.

Thanks people.
Unfortunately the problem with the chocolate may be the contamination with nuts originally - but every time he has had "brown" chocolate he vomited, but white chocolate is OK. We are not sure if it is contamination or a problem with cocoa solids but hospital don't test for that so we avoid it.
Now he has such a strong association that the smell of melted chocolate makes him feel sick. ( He has other SN's too and very strong sense of smell/taste).
I have made pancakes with out egg. They take forever to set in the pan - I'm not sure if they have the time in the lesson.I will try to find out.
Also Staffordshire oatcakes are good - but they use yeast and it takes an hour for the batter to be ready to use.
The allergies he has are egg, nuts, sesame, fish, seafood, blue food colouring and a problem with chocolate.