Breads and Baking
White Soda Bread
Rye Soda Bread
Flaxseed Bread
Quinoa Bread
Crusty White Loaf
Flatbreads
Corn Tortillas
Shortcrust Pastry
Basic Biscuits
Banana Bread
Products and Stockists
Acknowledgements
Copyright
Introduction
The Intolerant Gourmet is for everyone who loves food and who loves to cook. This includes anyone who suffers from an intolerance or allergy to certain foods, people not usually catered for by cookery books. For that reason all the recipes in this book are completely free from wheat, dairy produce, soya, eggs and yeast, and almost entirely free from gluten. Yet they taste fantastic – designed to inspire and make you want to eat. And, most important of all, they don’t let on that there is anything missing. For this not an earnest cookbook but one that celebrates the joy of good food; every recipe could (and should) be served to friends and family, whether suffering from a food intolerance or not, without a single person finishing their meal feeling that they’ve gone without.
Through my own experience of learning how to cope with various food intolerances, I have met many fellow sufferers and this book has emerged as a result. The Intolerant Gourmet focuses on the culprit foods – how to avoid and replace the ones most commonly associated with food intolerances. It focuses less on full-blown food allergies, which are relatively rare and usually confined to one type of food, such as nuts or shellfish. By contrast, food intolerances are widespread and often multiple, with the sufferer developing a sensitivity to a whole range of foods. For this reason I haven’t excluded nuts from this book as I find that, in the absence of other ingredients, they provide vital texture and flavour to my dishes. However, less than a third of the recipes contain nuts. Those that do are clearly marked and there is a wealth of choice for readers wishing to avoid them. For those who are allergic to any of the foodstuffs focused on in this book, such as wheat or dairy produce, then absolutely every recipe is open to you.
When first diagnosed with an intolerance or allergy, you may feel depressed at the idea of having to give up certain foods, but your diet need only be as restrictive as you make it. It takes a little extra forethought, admittedly, but within a short space of time preparing intolerance-friendly meals will become second nature. The benefits of avoiding the problem foods will leave you feeling so much better that you’ll never want to go back to your old ways.
Cooking and eating are, by their very nature, sociable acts. Hence people who become restricted in their diet worry that they may also become restricted in their lives. Family meals or dinners with friends can become an act of isolation, with one meal for you and another for everyone else. Eating out can be equally fraught, its pleasures outweighed by the simple lack of anything on the menu that you can actually eat! Having lived with multiple food intolerances for years, I have experienced these frustrations many times. So when I began writing The Intolerant Gourmet it was very important to me that this was a cookbook that could be used by as many people as possible. In these pages you will find dishes that you can eat blissful in the knowledge that they contain nothing that could make you unwell. Not only that but they will make you and those eating with you feel both indulged and well fed. These are dishes that everyone can take pleasure in, whether they’ve a food sensitivity or not.
The recipes in this book aim not only to satisfy your dietary requirements, but also to inspire you in the way of intolerance-friendly home cooking. The thought of all the things you can’t eat can seem overwhelming, but there are so many ways around this that you need never feel as though you are going without. Whether it is a combination of naturally non-allergenic ingredients, or an adaptation of a traditional dish using intolerance-friendly substitutes, these recipes will show you that being sensitive to certain foods does not mean a lifetime of deprivation. In fact, it can open up a whole new way of cooking that uses fresh ingredients, makes you feel fantastic and, most importantly, tastes really, really good.
The Intolerant Kitchen
The Intolerant Gourmet is all about the pleasure of eating – enjoying the delicious food you can have rather than craving the things you can’t. But before delving into the recipes, it is worth defining what constitutes a food allergy and what a food intolerance and how they differ.
A food allergy generally causes an immediate allergic reaction, which triggers an immune-system response and severe symptoms. There is also such a thing as a delayed allergic reaction to food, as in coeliac disease, for instance, in which the sufferer is allergic to the gluten in wheat. Intolerance, on the other hand, is an adverse reaction to a particular food or ingredient that occurs every time the food is eaten, but especially if larger quantities of it are consumed. It is much more common than an allergy and, although far less dangerous, symptoms can be similar and it can be no less difficult to live with. Food intolerance occurs when the body is unable to deal with a particular type of food, such as wheat, dairy products or egg. This is usually due to a combination of factors – the body not being able to produce enough of the particular chemical or enzyme needed for the digestion of that food and an over-exposure to the food in question.
Food intolerance can be triggered by ill-health (following serious illness, for instance, or an operation on the digestive system), but in most cases it is brought on by an over-exposure to a particular food or foods. In Britain, for example, we consume a huge amount of wheat grain on a daily basis, without even being aware of it. It is quite normal for an individual to eat a wheat-based cereal for breakfast, a sandwich of some type for lunch, followed by a pasta-based meal for supper. The result is a disproportionate amount of wheat consumption in one day, and if this is repeated over time, it can easily lead to an intolerance to wheat.
Intolerances are rarely life-threatening, but they do cause very real symptoms, from bloating and abdominal pain to rashes, headaches and even depression. Such symptoms can begin hours or even days after taking the food in question, making it difficult to diagnose the cause. As a result, sufferers can find themselves living in a state where they never feel wholly well. Indeed, this may have gone on for so long that it will have become an accepted part of their lives. They can’t remember a time when it was any better.
Once you have been diagnosed with a food allergy or intolerance, then you should of course try to avoid the problem food in all its guises. At the same time, it’s important to build up your reserves of vitamins, minerals and essential nutrients and to support your immune system as much as possible. Avoiding the problem food needn’t be a dismal business, however. You can buy a wide selection of products specially devised for sufferers from food intolerances and allergies, and some are worth their weight in gold in the kitchen. This cookbook uses a selection of the best, tried-and-tested products – for my list of recommended products and stockists. It also uses a range of allergen-free fresh produce to create recipes that are both rich in nutritional value and taste delicious.
Adopting an allergy- or intolerance-friendly diet does mean weaning yourself off all unnecessary processed and modified foods. When you can no longer rely on packets of biscuits or ready-made meals to fill a hole or provide an instant meal, learning to make the most of fresh wholefoods will make things much easier. Fruit, vegetables, pulses and meat – the foundation of good home cooking – are all intolerance-friendly foods, providing a great range of culinary options. The chapters in this book will encourage you to notice what’s in season, too, so that you begin to make seasonal eating a natural part of your diet.