Ethnic Cooking
With my problems over the Digestive biscuits and their codex gluten-free wheat starch, it is worth looking at ethnic or traditional cooking around the world.
Indian – Thickened with chick-pea flour.
Chinese – Rice-based and often unthickened. My local and very safe and goodChinese restaurant uses potato flour, but what do they use in China.
Provencal – Everything is thickened by reduction.
Italian – Take out the bread, pasta and pizza and most Italian cooking is about pure and fresh ingredients.
Fish – Traditionally cooked plain or smoked. Look at some Scottish, Greek, Spanish and Italian traditions.
Sausages and cooked meat – Proper ones are usually just meat in Europe.
English – My mother and her generation used corn-flour. Didn’t we always have meat and two veg. It could also be argued that traditional English food is what is in season in the garden or has been trapped or killed, like rabbit or chicken.
So if you take out bread, a lot of traditional food is gluten-free.
We were all and I don’t just mean coeliacs, a lot healthier.
Costa at Addenbrookes
Costa in the Food Court used to have little packets of two Doves Farm cookies. Excellent and reliably gluten-free. Not any more though, but they have a gluten-free chocolate macaroon, which wasn’t bad, but not as good.
Surely in hospital they should cater for all!
Codex Digestive Biscuits
They gave me some of these in Addenbrookes. On Friday when I came out I Must have ate about half a packet, as they were quite tasty. On Saturday, I had a blotchy face and a red neck, which is one of the ways gluten affects me.. Just likeit used to before I was diagnosed as a coeliac and went gluten-free. C was always plastering moisturiser on my face to no avail. Everything else, I ate on those two days was either something I knew I could trust or had cooked myself.
On Saturday I looked at the biscuit packet and found that they contained codex gluten-free wheat starch. It may be so, but I think my body had reacted to it, just like it reacts to maltodextrin. So thank you, biscuits for glutening me! I shall avoid codex products in future and especially those with gluten-free wheat starch. That must be something like alcohol-free Scotch Whisky! If firms like Trufree, Doves Farm, Village Bakery and countless others can get it right, it can’t be that difficult.
Today, I woke up fine and look and feel normal.
Dogtor J
The American vet with coeliac disease has updated his web site.
He’s as forthright as ever.
An Interesting Article on Coeliac Disease
Found this on the Welcome web site.
Thick and Easy
I was given this in Hong Kong to help me swallow. I thought it affected me. When I finally got hold of the tin in Addenbrookes, it said it had no allergies, but contained maltodextrin. I react to the latter, but then the EU says it’s OK for me. Is the EU a coeliac? No!
Tête-Bêche or Herringbone
BA and Cathay Pacific have very different ideas about how Business Class should be laid out. In the former you sleep head to tail, whereas in Cathay, you’re arranged on either side of the aisle.
In my view BA’s layout is much better, as you can leave your seat so much easier, without taking the seat out of the sleeping position. Apparently, the herringbone gives a wider seat, but I don’t need that. I also found the Cathay seat a lot more uncomfortable, probably because I couldn’t lay on my stomach and because my spine sticks out at the bottom.
I should also say that the gluten-free food on BA was much better than that on Cathay, but this might be because it was out of Hong Kong. Strangely, the best I had, was on Astraeus on a charter to Gambia. It had been produced by a small Welsh company.
A Very Good Sweet and Sour Pork
I just had a very nice lunch. It was all gluten-free too!
It was thickened with corn flour.
Aux Armes de Bruxelles
It was very cold in Brussels, so I decided that it would not be a bad idea to have a good lunch in a warm restaurant.
I chose Aux Armes de Bruxelles.
Aux Armes de Bruxelles
It is quite an expensive restaurant, as one would expect if a past Kings of Belgium is amongst its former clients, but I chose the set lunch and a decent small carafe of white wine. There was a good choice and I had Ardennes ham followed by grilled salmon in a béarnaise sauce with boiled potatoes, and then ice cream. I followed it with coffee.
I thought it was reasonable at just under 28 euros.
As to being gluten-free, the waiter understood and I had no reaction at all.
Hay Fever
To add to all my problems, I seem to be suffering from awful hay fever.
C’est la vie!
But I never suffered before I was diagnosed as a coeliac.
