He's got the winning recipe

A chef leads way on new food allergy law

Ming Tsai, chef and owner at Wellesley's Blue Ginger, was instrumental in the passage of a state food allergy law. (Ben Terris for the Boston Globe)

Six years ago, Ming Tsai and his family were turned away from a Massachusetts restaurant. The eating establishment refused to serve Tsai, head chef and owner of Blue Ginger in Wellesley, not because of the color of his skin, but because his three year-old son had food allergies.

"It was infuriating not to be served," said Tsai, whose son is allergic to soy, wheat, dairy, shellfish, tree nuts, peanuts, and eggs. "I can't think of anything more un-American than refusing service at a restaurant."

"All it takes to serve people with allergies is an awareness of what is in the food you serve," he said. "If you can't keep track of what you're serving, then you can't keep people safe, and if you can't keep people safe, you should get out of the industry."

After the incident, Tsai, who has won the James Beard Award for best chef in the Northeast and is the host of the PBS cooking show "Simply Ming," began advocating for a bill that would regulate how restaurants deal with food allergies in Massachusetts.

State Senator Cynthia Creem first drafted the law in 2005, and after several years of tinkering and lobbying by Tsai and others, Governor Deval Patrick signed the bill into effect this year. The first food allergy law in the United States, it takes effect next Jan. 1.

The law requires all restaurants to put up a poster in their kitchens with information on how food allergies relate to preparation. It requires them, too, to include a statement on their menus asking customers to announce all allergies to their servers, and to show employees an informational video about allergies. It also requires the Department of Public Health to create a list of "Food Allergy Friendly" establishments.

"When I first penned the law, I didn't even know Chef Ming," said Creem. "I couldn't be luckier to know him now, and the bill certainly would not yet have passed if it weren't for him. He showed up at a public hearing completely unannounced, and from that day forth lent his name and his energy to a cause that can save the lives of hundreds of people."

According to the Food Allergy and Anaphylaxis Network, a group that strives to raise awareness about the issue, there are 12 million Americans with food allergies, and 30,000 go to emergency rooms each year.

"This law was such a huge step for the one in 25 Americans who suffer from food allergies," said Anne Munoz-Furlong , the network's founder. "We have found that around 50 percent of allergy-related deaths are caused by food in restaurants. To have someone like Chef [Tsai], who is both a parent and a restaurateur, champion the cause, is to have the perfect advocate."

Tsai said he was surprised that it took so long to get the bill signed.

"I figured it was such an obvious issue that people would be dying to raise the level of safety in restaurants," he said. "It turned out many restaurants didn't want this law because it would increase their liability. It was difficult to persuade people to create a safer system if they thought that the system could potentially get them in legal trouble."

Part of what made Tsai such a good sponsor for the cause was that he had been leading the way for 11 years. Even before he had his son, Tsai had been keeping a food allergy-friendly kitchen. When he first opened Blue Ginger, a restaurant that combines flavors from the East and the West, he created something called the Food Allergy Bible, a book that marked each dish containing a major allergen. With this in place, everyone from the wait staff to the cooks could focus on diner safety.

"You can really tell that people appreciate the safety nets that [Tsai] has put in place," said Jonathan Taylor, Blue Ginger's chef de cuisine, who has been working with Tsai for a decade. "When I first started, there was maybe one person with allergies a month, now it's six to 10 a night. I've had kids who have never eaten out before come up to me in the kitchen and say, 'Is it really OK for me to eat here?' It's a really great feeling to tell them with 100 percent confidence that they can."

Tsai said he is happy that the bill has been signed into law, but admits that there is still a lot to be done.

"It's great that Massachusetts is paving the way here," he said. "But I want families with food allergies across the country to feel safe going out for dinner. The next step hopefully will be to get this going nationally, and to make the implementation of the food allergy bible a requirement as well."