I bring ‘handbag bread’ to the club — bouncers are baffled, but I have good reason
Call it a club sandwich.
A UK student baffled club bouncers after bringing a handbag stuffed with gluten-free bread so she could enjoy McDonald’s sans suffering a reaction.
“I got into the habit of taking my own bread, ‘handbag bread’ it’s known as,” Evelyn Burton, 22, who was born in Sweden but moved to the UK when she was 11, told Kennedy News of her unique life hack. “I take it into nightclubs or bars, it comes with me for the whole night out and ends up in McDonald’s at about 4 a.m.”
The University of Lincoln student added that the bouncers are usually “a bit baffled as to why I have some random bits of bread in cling film.”
A video posted online shows the Norfolk resident stuffing several slices of cling-wrapped Marks & Spencer brand gluten-free bread into her purse and then bringing them to the club like carbohydrate contraband.
The student, who coincidentally works at M&S, then goes to her local Golden Arches, where she MacGyvers a gluten-free double cheeseburger using her bread and their filling.
Burton was diagnosed with coeliac disease when she was just seven, meaning she can’t have pasta, bread and other foods with gluten or else she could suffer from intestinal damage and other symptoms.
The Brit’s gluten allergy didn’t stop her from craving McDonald’s, which her health-obsessed mother didn’t let her have growing up.
Despite mom’s burger ban, Burton was exposed to the Golden Arches as a teenager when her friends invited her there while shopping.
Due to her allergy, the Swede decided to bring her own special bread in a handbag to replace the gluten-rich buns, effectively allowing her to enjoy the fast food without suffering any side effects.
In other words, she can have her burger and eat it too.
The history student deployed this non-glutenburger technique when she attended college and started going to the club with friends.
“When I go to McDonald’s with my friends after a night out, it’s nice that I can also have something,” Burton said. “I’ll order a bunless double cheeseburger with extra pickles. All the pickles I can get.
She added, “Sometimes they’ve offered to put it in the bread for me but because it’s quite a severe allergy and I don’t want to risk cross-contamination, I’ll just do it myself. “
Think the hamburger version of the immortal “Seinfeld” scene in which Kramer walks over to Jerry’s house with two slices of bread and asks if he has any meat.
Burton said that the only downside is that her handbag bread often perplexes the bouncers, describing: “I often get questions at security when they ask to look in your handbag, asking ‘what’s that?’ but they tend to let me keep my bread.”
This workaround might seem whacky, however the clubber claims that it helps her from suffering any side effects.
“It isn’t an anaphylactic reaction or anything but it’s still quite dangerous,” said Burton, who wants to encourage other gluten-averse fast food fans to deploy this prophylactic measure as well.
“Enjoy your McDonald’s — bring your handbag bread,” she declared.
