Do NOT tell me you have a gluten allergy, and then ask me whether or not the mashed potatoes or the ice cream contains gluten.
#1) I am neither a pharmacist nor a certified dietitian. At my current level of education, I earn two dollars an hour, and I am worth every penny of it. Which - if any - of our foods contain gluten was not on any of the tests I had to pass to get this job, okay?
#2) We both know damn good and well that anyone who is allergic to anything knows good and well what they can or cannot eat when out in public.
The truth is, you're NOT allergic to gluten. The truth is, you heard from a friend over cocktails somewhere that eating gluten-free is healthier, so now you're going through a phase of reading cereal boxes, and asking wait staff lame questions which they don't know the answers to, to indulge your current fantasy of becoming a better You.
And I'm okay with that ... good for you. You go girl, and all that ...
But DO NOT LIE TO MY FACE about it, and tell me you're "allergic" - okay???
I agree that if you seriously were allergic to something, it would be worth my time to try and save your life by wondering around trying to find some kitchen person or manager who may or may not actually know the answer to your question. But you're not allergic, and therefore it's not worth my time to find this out for you. Even if you're "gluten-sensitive" then you're going to have to do your own research on the internet, or maybe pay a dietitian to give you a list of approved foods and places to eat, okay?
Wait staff however, are not generally going to be qualified to get this right for you. Wait staff are generally the kind of people who give you "regular" coffee when you ordered "decaf" because nobody's made decaf yet tonight and we're not about to start now. I'm not like that personally, but it does happen. Wait staff (on average) are about a thousand times more likely to have smoked a fattie right before they came to work, than they are to have "boned up" on their food allergies before they came to work. It's because I love you, that I'm telling you that wait staff are just overall not the type of people you should trust with such important things, okay?
What I can tell you for certain is that we have flour and flour-based batters in the building, because we cook bread and we fry things here. Lots of things. Flour therefore floats through the air at times because of the air conditioner and the fans, and could potentially cover every surface and dish in the entire kitchen at times. And when the air conditioning and fans are not performing well, then sweat - (yes, as in perspiration - dripping off of some cook or waiter's flour-tainted forehead) may be the last ingredient that landed in your dinner just before it got walked out to you. Therefore, nothing in the building can be certified as gluten-free - just "gluten friendly" at the absolute best. Therefore - no matter what I or any other tragically under-educated person in this building tells you - if you really are allergic to gluten then you might die if you eat in this restaurant, period.
Now if our menu, states in writing, that something is gluten-free, then - and only then - can you be certain enough about the gluten content (well, the lack thereof) to order it. If it's in writing then I'd say that someone who cared enough and who actually has the credentials to say so, got paid a lot of money to say so, and to attract gluten-allergic and gluten-sensitive eaters to our business. And if the answer to whether or not you can eat this particular item is a resounding "YES" then you should order it, based on what the menu says, but NOT, NOT, NOT based upon what your server says. Because they don't really know.
But if any of that were the case, AND you really were allergic to gluten, then you'd be ordering it with confidence, without asking your $2 an hour waiter about it.
And if whoever wrote the menu somehow got this wrong, then perhaps you could sue the restaurant for what they incorrectly stated in writing.
Sue them posthumously, I mean.
All I'm saying, is do not trust a restaurant server with this question, and definitely do not lie to them about it either.
Because if you do, then you probably deserve whatever happens to you.
Did I just say all that outloud?
Sorry, didn't realize you were standing there.
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