Nakd Bars
Good gluten-free snacks are hard to come by. But have the Welsh come up with something better than the ubiquitous banana?
Nakd Cocoa and Orange Bar
They certainly taste nice. My only worry is that they seem to be a bit addictive. They do say on the packet that the bars are “Gleefully made in Wales”
Is this another case of a food company being innovative to expand and get us out of the recession?
They are also following a trend of trying to make the packaging funny and very much worth reading. Humour is the greatest weapon in life and we don’t use it enough in marketing and business.
Perhaps the reason we got into the recession was have we ever had such a humourless bunch of politicians as Gordon Brown and NuLabor?
You May Get the Man Out of Suffolk, But You Can’t Get Suffolk Out of the Man
I wasn’t born in Suffolk, but according to my father I was conceived on the floor of the Ordnance Hotel in Felixstowe. But for the last forty years or so, I’ve always had strong associations with the county and of course I still support Ipswich Town.
But Suffolk gets under your skin and every time I go to the local de Beauvoir Deli, I’m reminded of my history, as they sell products from Pinney’s of Orford. C and I must have had upwards of fifty happy meals in their Oysterage in Orford. I think C would approve that I’ve just bought some of their smoked fish pate for my lunch, which I’ll eat with s0me Genius toast.
Smoked Fish Pate from Pinney's of Orford
Gluten-Free on Hope Street
Hope Street is the street that links Liverpool’s two cathedrals. It is also one of the best places to eat gluten-free I’ve found. I ended up eating in a restaurant called Host, but there were several places with gluten-free offerings. I probably made the wrong choice of meal, as I had a lamb shank in a curried sauce with root vegetables, as it was so difficult to cut up with my gammy left hand. But it was lovely!
Host on Hope Street
A Typical Shop
I took this picture after I unloaded my backpack and shopping bag yesterday.
A Typical Shop
Note the Genius bread, Pinney’s smoked salmon, Waitrose ginger cake, goat’s yoghurt and milk and the raspberries and juice. I forgot the eggs, but otherwise, I have enough for two days.
I think that it is true to say that as I can shop every day and getting there is either a walk or a free bus ride, I’m shopping differently now.
Now that I’ve got some operating instructions for the cooker, I can also eat a greater variety of food, at least in the way they are cooked. Yesterday, I used the griddle pan to cook myself a rather nice steak, whch I served with some microwaved vegetables. I wouldn’t have normally used the latter in the past, but they were on offer and peas and sweetcorn made a change.
I think it’s also true to say that as I go past a shop every day, it makes it a lot easier. I’ll go again today, as I need some envelopes to post some goods, I’ve sold on eBay.
An Update on Honest Bread
The two main uses I have for bread is to make toast for quick snacks like beans or scrambled egg on toast or to make some sandwiches when I go to somewhere like the football and I know that a gluten-free snack, except for perhaps a banana, will be unavailable.
Genius bread fulfils these purposes, but Honest bread does not.
I ate some yesterday, with a friend who lives a lot of the time in France and we both agreeed it was much like brioche. Fine for some purposes, but not for our lunchtime scrambled egg.
She felt it would make a superb bread and butter pudding.
I doubt I will be buying it again.
The Next Gluten-Free Food Opportunity
Yesterday’s visit to the cafe at St. Paul’s has got me thinking. What is going to be the next gluten-free opportunity. I was served gluten-free bread there and I suspect it might have been something like Genius. So perhaps the opportunity in a large metropolis like London is the supply of a range of quality GF bread and rolls. They will be a premium product as they will be aimed at restaurants and quality food shops. Get the product right and no self-respecting restaurant will be without its GF bread probably delivered almost daily. Remember in the late 1800s, virtually every part of London had their own craft bakers. Most incidentally were German.
Would the same also apply to beer?
I don’t know, but in probably ten years time, the market will be very different.
Carluccio’s Start Selling Gluten-Free Pasta
According to the manager of their Islington Upper Street branch, they’ve now started selling the gluten-free pasta they serve in the caffes in the attached shops, where the demand is strong enough.
But yet again we have another reputable company targeting the coeliac market. Who’d be a specialist gluten-free food manufacturer?
They’ll be one main group of winners; coeliacs like me.
Free Speech in the Coeliac Area
Someone, who lives outside of the UK, has said that their coeliac society has objected to criticism of the society, that they wrote in an Internet chat-room.
I’m all for free speech as you know, providing it’s not malicious and very much support the reform of the libel law in the UK. I’m a big supporter of Sense About Science, who are trying to stop commercial interests using the UK’s libel laws for their our ends.
The coeliac area has been pretty free of legal spats so far, but I suspect we will see quite a few in the next few years.
So many companies make a lot of money and they don’t like new entrants to the market and so many doctors have a nice simple living from coeliac disease, and probably wouldn’t like changes to diagnostic methods and then there’s the charity racket. Certainly in the UK, there are loads of retired great and good, who get on the charity bandwagon to have a nice lifestyle. I have no knowledge of the UK Coeliac society as I’m a Marxist of the Groucho tendency, who wouldn’t join any club, that would have me as a member. But as it’s fairly small according to the accounts, it probably hasn’t any places for freeloaders. But sadly there are many charities, that are virtually run for the benefit of their board, if you believe some of the accounts I’ve read in the newspapers.
The problem with the coeliac market is that any good cook, can create their own completely gluten-free meals. I would argue you don’t even have to be a good cook, as some of the recipes I use are very much enjoyed by my friends and family. Most have been stolen from the Internet or borrowed from friends.
Also on the coeliac front in the UK, there is a war out there, partly driven by the recession, in that quite a few intelligent and ethical food technologists see the coeliac market as a place of expansion. Every week I go to Waitrose or other supermarkets, there seems to be something new. Yesterday it was the Honest bread, but there has been Lazy Days biscuits from Scotland and now there may be Estrella Damm Laura beer from Spain. I’ve also seen some luxury foods, like soups, that have been made deliberately gluten-free so that their market is bigger. Established coeliac food companies and even mainstream ones are under threat, but they have nowhere to complain about companies who are being both ethical and commercial. Even the supermarkets can’t help, as I suspect that the new quality entrants can give them better sales and possibly better margins.
A Gluten-Free Lunch in Beautiful Surroundings
I had perhaps intended to have lunch in Carluccio’s in Smithfield, but on the way I walked behind St. Paul’s to take a photograph of the Temple Bar.
Temple Bar
Instead of passing through, as I intended, I spotted a sign saying restaurant and pointing to the crypt of the cathedral.
So I explored and found a restaurant with a full coeliac, not just gluten-free menu. It was more than I needed, so I approached the adjoining cafe and asked if the soup was gluten-free. The waitress said she was a coeliac too and said she’d check and also get me some gluten-free bread if I would like some. In the end I had some excellent parsnip soup and one of Fentiman‘s exotic soft drinks for about eight pounds.
So now, I can add a hole-filler to my walking routes around London.
The Anonymous Widower 