Staff on America’s Poshest Island Are Becoming Allergic to Steak Because of Ticks
Martha’s Vineyard may be one of America’s poshest playgrounds, but half of its chefs and farm workers are now being bit by ticks that can make people allergic to steak.
The wealthy Massachusetts island, long associated with presidents, summer houses, and liberal grandees, is dealing with rising cases of alpha-gal syndrome, a potentially life-threatening allergy that can develop after a tick bite.
But the strangest part is not just the allergy. It is the calm, lifestyle-magazine tone around the whole thing.
According to the Vineyard Gazette, island tick and health experts recently met with chefs and restaurateurs at Oak Bluffs town hall to discuss how to keep restaurant dining safe for people with alpha-gal while preserving an “enjoyable restaurant experience.”
Which is one way of putting it. Only on Martha’s Vineyard could a horror-movie tick allergy become a chef-led workshop on how to keep dinner service civilised.
Another is: a chunk of the workforce on one of America’s wealthiest islands may now have to dodge beef, butter, bacon fat, cream, meat stock, and even cooking fumes because of tick bites.
Tick epidemiologist Lea Hamner asked the room whether anyone knew someone with alpha-gal, and several hands went up.
“I think everyone can probably attest it’s getting closer and closer and closer to home, no matter who you are on this Island,” she said.
Some people with alpha-gal only react to red meat. Others can react to dairy, gelatin, or even fumes from red meat or dairy being cooked.
Charlie Granquist, chef at Slough Farm, told the Gazette he has worked to remove alpha-gal allergens from meals he cooks for farm staff and the island community.
Why? Because he estimates that around half of the farmers he regularly cooks for have alpha-gal.
Half.
Granquist said he has turned to “alpha-gal-friendly substitutes” for old kitchen staples, along with “non-mammalian roads to complex flavors.”
“Nuts, for example, can add thickness and depth to sauces, and mushrooms, fish sauce and miso can lend layers of umami to a dish,” he said.
But there is still something deeply strange about one of America’s richest enclaves quietly adapting to a tick-borne red meat allergy as though it were just another seasonal dietary preference.
The CDC says alpha-gal syndrome is a rapidly growing red meat allergy linked to tick bites, with an estimated 450,000 Americans affected between 2010 and 2022.
The whole affair also casts the mind back to bioethicist S. Matthew Liao, who once floated the idea of using biomedical engineering to induce mild red meat allergies or intolerances as a way to reduce meat consumption and fight climate change.
“What if we could engineer people to dislike the taste of burgers?” Liao asked in 2014.
What if indeed.