I’m going on holidays, which has me doing a lot of thinking about cooking. You see, when you have an allergic family, it’s always much safer to cook your own food. But when you are traveling abroad, how can you know how to buy what is safe?

For most food allergies, your best bet is to shop the outside of the store. In other words, you stick to fresh, unprocessed fruits, veggies and meat. This saves you from having to know the words for “gluten-free” in Dutch (like I do). However, it also saves you from a well-meaning person who says that something is gluten-free, but who does not know the implications for your family if you have trace contamination.

That’s the thing with food allergies: if yours are mild, then you might be able to play a bit fast and loose. If yours are life-threatening, then that’s a whole other story.

So, buy simple, ordinary, unprocessed food. But also consider simple, ordinary local foods. For instance, if you’ve never had some of the local Mexican veggies, try Jicama. If you aren’t allergic to meat, butter or garlic, you’ve got to munch a few escargot when you’re in Paris. (Those are snails, by the way.) The Dutch love all kinds of eel – prepared in all sorts of ways.

You might find yourself a new favorite, among strange foods that you’d never have considered.

Back to your own cooking. Simple ingredients and simple preparations (you are on holiday after all) don’t have to mean boring food! Think spices. Think new ways of cooking. For instance, if you always eat your eggs fried, try poached! Not only do you need less ingredients to poach an egg, you’ll also find that they work better with any condiment – even ketchup!

Since bread can be a challenge to make when on holidays (after all, who wants to have to find gluten-free baking powder), why not give up the bread and eat rice and potatoes? You can always use veggies and fruit as portable finger foods. For that matter, dried fruits and veggies are fabulously easy to carry around – and you can make them at home and bring them in your luggage!

The biggest thing when going on vacation is planning ahead. Bring food that you can’t find locally (if it’s important). When allergies are life threatening, always travel with at least 2 epi-pens. Make ahead any kind of item that will keep – like dehydrated fruits and veggies.

We’ll be on vacation in Europe. That’s a lot easier than some countries. But I’ll be back with any interesting things that happen on our journey.