Traveling to Italy with food allergies?

I'll be spending three months living in Italy this summer- one month in Torino, one at the beach in Liguria, and one at the mountains in Bardonecchia.

I have a severe peanut allergy and will go into anaphylactic shock if I come into contacts with peanuts, peanut butter, or peanut oil.

I also have a few smaller peanut-related allergies such as green snow peas, garbanzo beans, chickpeas, and anything composed of these ingredients (such as hummus, etc).

I'm not sure how people typically eat over in Italy and I'm a little bit nervous about the language barrier since I usually ask a lot of questions in restaurants or read ingredients before I eat.

Does anyone have any advice for me or know of any foods/dishes that I should look out for? I've never left the country before so I've never had to deal with this type of situation.

Thank you in advance for your help!

Order things you are familiar with, such as poached fish and chicken, potatoes, veggies. I know that olive oil is used a lot, but peanut oil may be used for frying.

Go to a language center at home and have someone write a statement for you in Italian listing all of your dietary requirements---you can just hand a card to your server to discuss with the chef.

You should be able to try wonderful cuisine if you do this and also do not have to learn to speak Italian. An alternative would be to purchase your meals at a market every day and fix food yourself--cheese, meat, fruit, raw veggies, boiled eggs, etc.

Okay, this may sound really dumb, but if I were you, I would have someone who is very good with Italian language, write on a piece of paper for you how to say in italian, does this dish contain peanuts, garbanzo beans, etc etc, as I have a severe allergy to these foods - and bring that with you to either repeat in a restaurant or to even hand to a food server to read so they are aware of your allergy. I am italian, and I think pasta and pizza are pretty safe. But I do think the italian desserts could very well be made with nuts. Antipastos could very well have chickpeas, etc. Also, if you can, you should obtain Benadryl and an Epi pen over there to keep with you just in case.

I think that when you'll be in Italy, you should eat everything because our dishes are so tasty....! I will write you how to express your allergies in Italian:

- I'm allergic to peanut = sono allergico alle arachidi
- I'm allergic to peanut butter = sono allergico al burro di arachidi (anyway we don't use lot of peanut butter in italy)
- I'm allergic to peanut oil= sono allergico all'olio di arachidi
- I'm allergic to green snow peans= sono allergico ai piselli
- I'm allergic to garbanzo beans / chickpeas = sono allergico ai ceci.

in a resaturant you can ask:

- are there any peanut in this dish? = ci sono delle arachidi in questo piatto?
- are there any green snow beans in this dish? ci sono dei piselli in questo piatto?
- are there any garbanzo beans/chickpeas in this dish? = ci sono dei ceci in questo piatto?

I hope you will love Italian food!