Legume-Free Catering

Legume-free is the umbrella the other allergy labels tuck under, and two names on the list surprise almost everyone.

Peanut is a legume. It grows underground on a bean plant, a cousin of the lentil rather than the almond, however the office allergy card files it. Tree nuts are a separate job, handled at nut-free catering. Soy is a legume too, and it travels through so many sauces that it earns its own page at soy-free catering.

What is left is the ground this page covers: the pulses. Chickpeas, lentils, black and pinto beans, peas, and lupin.

Office catering builds its meatless and healthy options almost entirely out of pulses. Hummus is chickpea. Falafel is chickpea. Dal is lentil. The veggie burger is bean or soy. The healthy grain bowl scatters edamame and chickpeas across every rail.

So the corner of the table that looks safest is the one to walk past, and the tray the health-conscious half of the office avoids is the one that feeds your colleague. Roast chicken, sliced beef, potatoes and rice, plain roasted vegetables, a green salad with the beans held back in the kitchen.

Say that out loud to whoever places the order, because every instinct points the other way.

Peanut and soy are declared allergens on a US ingredient label. Chickpea, lentil, pea, and lupin are not. Past those first two names the packet tells you nothing, so the list comes from you and reaches the kitchen in writing.

Three ingredients catch caterers out and are worth naming by hand:

• Lupin flour, which appears in European-style breads and pastries and rarely gets called out.
• Pea protein, the base of many plant-based burgers and sausages.
• Bean and lentil purees, used to thicken soups, dips, and vegetarian sauces.

Covering several needs in one order is worked through in how to cover mixed dietary needs in one order.

Legume allergy is not one switch. Plenty of people who react hard to peanut eat chickpeas and lentils with no trouble, and a smaller number react across several pulses. That cannot be worked out from the outside. Ask the person for their own list, which their allergist has already written down.

For a confirmed allergy the shape of the order changes, not the menu. One meal is built to that list, packed on its own, and travels under their name. Why a sealed box beats a buffet on allergens covers the packaging side.

Hand CaterAi the named legumes alongside the headcount, and caterers who cannot cook to that list drop out before you see a menu. The rest of the axis sits with every dietary need we cater for.