Working in a nice restaurant you often come up against large tables of women, whose association is usually a Rotary Club, perhaps a School Council or some other similar social group. If these ladies represent the 'upper middle class' or there or there about you end up dealing with more than a few eccentricities. For a waiter one of the worst is the rambling lists of food allergies that have stricken modern civilisation. My great aunt almost perished from eating a normal diet whilst being coeliac in a time when no one knew what it was. Hence I don't begrudge people with medically diagnosed allergies imploring a restaurant to cater for them. However I can sum up the more common situation with a statement made by one fed up waiter many years ago. "There is a difference between your doctor telling you you're a coeliac and your naturopath telling you you're a coeliac."
It baffles me that anyone would want to live on a restricted diet or what logic is utilised to justify the fabrication of severe food allergies. Are you slightly bloated after big meals? Perhaps you ate to much? Perhaps you shouldn't drink sulphur ridden wines with your food? No, of course not. You're a coeliac, hence from this point on, or at least until your will power breaks you will torment every waiter and restaurant you visit with incessant requests for gluten free dishes, pestering all staff members unfortunate enough to encounter you with the severity of your condition, how you will devolve into an incontinent, gut ache ridden nightmare of a being if so much as an ounce of treacherous gluten is introduced into your food. Dutifully however the waiter does the best he can, usually concocting a plate of grilled fish and steamed vegetables for you to consume, content that someones paid attention to you today.
Real coeliacs lay low in agony after ingesting gluten. Severe pain, vomiting, diarrhoea and malnutrition, weakness and early death can occur if their condition is not treated properly. Why a plethora of people would wish to emulate this horrible condition simply because they at some point in the recent past had a belly ache is beyond me. I dedicate a piece of writing to the one lady on these tables who does not carry on like this. In fact, perhaps with just a little self-consciousness always acknowledges the waiter with a smile and thank you whenever they encounter each other. She enjoys eating out, perhaps a little more than she enjoys the company of her 'friends' who perhaps she spends time with simply because its better than doing nothing that day. Her smiles, pleases, thank you's and graciousness have not gone unnoticed and she will be known as the Ascot Matron.
If I ever write anything decent I hope I do her justice.