Working with Gluten-Intolerance - The Wheat Wasteland.

In 1922, T.S. Eliot wrote that April was the cruelest month of the year but, no offense to the great poet, it just happens to be my favorite. Besides the promise of summer, April offers two great holidays to keep us occupied: Easter and Passover. And since Passover, among other things, concerns a huge dietary restriction, it seemed like a great time to discuss the Gluten-Intolerant Guest as part two of my series on staying allergy conscious.  

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There are several different strains of the gluten-constrained breed, and, according to this LA Times article, the ranks are swelling fast: The doctor-diagnosed Celiac, the self-diagnosed Celiac, the Wheat-Sensitive and the Carb-Free. Yet, with a little planning, it’s easy for the restaurateur to come up with one common, economical system to deal with any gluten-related contingency. Considering that you’ll be well re-paid with free advertising on sites like the Gluten-Free Restaurant Awareness Program (which will even send you helpful info free of charge) and the National Foundation for Celiac Awareness, it’s entirely worth it.

Obviously, I’m not recommending you close up the bakery and go totally gluten-free. I’m just saying that an occasionally over-looked component of the food service industry is the effort to make people happy. Moderating our tendency to declare: “Take it or leave it!” might just help us in the big-picture sense of the long run. So, with that in mind, here are a few helpful hints at satisfactorily satisfying the gluten-intolerant, courtesy of Gluten-Free Cooking For Dummies:

-       Line cookware with foil and bam! Sterilized for gluten-free work.

-       Think of arrowroot, cornstarch or tapioca starch before you automatically reach for the flour. All of these work just as well as thickeners (and in some cases, better!)

-       Cornmeal or Masa can double as a breading in the fryer, plus they have a better flavor and a neat texture to boot.

-       Be wary of crumbs. Even 20 parts per million of gluten can make a celiac sick, so that means thinking about using typically un-food related areas of your kitchen to plate their dish and turning off the convection feature on an oven or toaster to avoid gluten-y dust.

-       Finally, be aware that gluten, like radar traps, can lurk in some surprisingly places. Amusingly, Passover Matzah is actually on the list of gluten-full items…and less obviously, so is soy sauce, malt vinegars and couscous. Here’s a small list of surprisingly unfriendly foods and here’s a more comprehensive list of banned items, if you'd really like to pore over it.