Food allergies have become more common and more severe worldwide. 15 years ago allergies to peanut and fruits were rare, but they can be life threatening now if an allergic person eats them accidentally. One parent of a peanut allergic child has described it as like sitting on a time bomb; waiting for the next life threatening attack to arise if her child eats peanut by mistake.

Cooking meals that are safe and palatable can stretch one’s creativity and buying alternative ingredients as substitutes can be expensive. It can also be labour intensive and stressful to avoid cross contamination during the preparation and cooking.

There are good recipe books for Western cuisine to cater for food allergic patients but a similar book for Chinese cuisine did not exist. It was clearly an unmet need, so Mrs Maria Lee, and her son Dr Tak Hong Lee collaborated in 2012 to write the first bilingual (English/Chinese) Cookbook for food allergy. They decided to concentrate on the commonest foods causing problems in their first book, namely peanut, egg, dairy and seafood.

Mrs Lee was the first “celebrity cook” in Hong Kong before such a term had been invented and she had over 40 years of experience in the cooking industry. Dr Lee is Professor emeritus of Allergy at King’s College London and is also Honorary Clinical Professor at the University of Hong Kong. Their combined experience and partnership have resulted in an authoritative guidance on recipes, cooking techniques and medical knowledge on how to prepare delicious Chinese dishes for those with food allergies.