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It looks good, it tastes like nothing one earth
Here is a useful thing I just came across. At least, it is useful if you are planning to go to Japan and are not omnivorous:
Cut-out-and-keep cards explaining various dietary restrictions, in Japanese
I think these are a great idea, particularly for countries in which your average foreign person is all at sea with the language. It occurs to me that I haven't bought a phrasebook in a long time - maybe these days they have a handy set of stock phrases for common allergies/intolerances/choices?
Cut-out-and-keep cards explaining various dietary restrictions, in Japanese
I think these are a great idea, particularly for countries in which your average foreign person is all at sea with the language. It occurs to me that I haven't bought a phrasebook in a long time - maybe these days they have a handy set of stock phrases for common allergies/intolerances/choices?
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On the no-meat front, I've also heard tales from travelling vegans about (in some countries) having to specify that "no meat" also includes "no minced meat" as that's considered to be different. So I guess the signs need to be culturally-aware as well as translated. (Hence the inclusion on the no-fish Japanese one that yes, this means dashi as well.)
I think Travelling Vegans sounds a bit like some sort of frightfully left-wing bang-on circus.
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A large number of restaurant staff don't seem to understand that there are health-related food restrictions that *don't* cause you to drop down dead instantly. Either you've got a fatal allergy or you're just being fussy - there's no in between.
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My boyfriend doesn't eat nuts - he won't explode on contact, or anything exciting, he just violently dislikes them. Trying to find out whether something like a cake actually has nuts deliberately put in it is really quite difficult.
Tangentially, since we moved offices, the wife of one of my colleagues has started joining us for our Friday pub lunch trip (since they live very nearby). She's coeliac, and I've been slightly surprised at the extent to which fairly average pubs have been reasonably clued-up and very obliging. By 'average', I mean a small pub with a limited menu, not a gastropub or a particularly foody place. None of them have had specific gf options on the menu, but thus far they've been most willing to adapt food, and fairly aware of potential problems with pre-prepared sauces and so on.
Is this your experience in general? I know you've written about some really bad cases on your LJ, but I don't know if they're representative or exceptional. I guess it might be relevant that the pubs in question have all been non-chainy places, that weren't particularly busy, where the person who was doing the cooking could pop out for a chat.
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ME: Hello, do you have anything vegetarian and gluten free?
HIM: Yes, there's pasta or pizza.
ME: Oh, do you do gluten free pasta and pizza bases?
HIM: Oh, gluten free. I'll just go and check with the chef.
[Goes away and returns after about five minutes]
HIM: The chef can do you steak and chips.
ME: Steak isn't vegetarian, is it?
HIM: But I thought you wanted gluten free!
ME: Yes, I need food that's both gluten free and vegetarian. I phoned the hotel three days ago, at ten o'clock on Friday morning, and spoke to a manager who said he would inform the chef, and guaranteed you would be able to cook something for me.
HIM: I'll just go and check.
[Goes away and returns after about five minutes]
HIM [with huge grin on his face, as though he's doing me the biggest favour in the world by deigning to find out the answer]: We can't cook anything for you.
*****
So while I'm not surprised that it isn't difficult for coeliacs with no extra requirements to eat out, it is difficult for me.
If I can see some things on the menu that would or may make an adequate meal I'll give it a go (e.g. if there's omlette and chips, and the chips have gluten on them, but something else is available with new potatoes, I'll ask for an omlette and new potatoes; if there's mushroom stroganoff and rice, I'll ask about the sauce, and if I think they're telling me it's got gluten in it because they can't be bothered to check, or they think cream has gluten, I'll keep pressing until I get a proper answer.)
But if I can't see anything, I don't generally try, because people make me feel awful and fussy even when I've done everything I can, like ringing in advance, so I can't imagine how awful I'd feel if I really were making difficult demands.
Lots of places do jacket potatoes, though, and I seldom find I'm far from something like a Wetherspoons, a Wagamama's an Indian restaurant or somewhere else I know will be safe, so it's not as huge a problem as it might be.
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Mostly because I've had almost exactly that conversation so many times getting non-dairy vegetarian food. People ALWAYS end up offering me something with dairy in but no meat, followed by meat with no dairy.
And then, they start getting really confused and going "Well, such and such has got gluten in so you can't have that..."- ummmm, huh?
I have started just asking if food is vegan, which you would *think* would be harder because of how it's more restrictive, but usually works out easier and more likely to get food. Because otherwise you get the "May contain traces of blah blah blah" and not an actual straight answer. My local pub have started a deeply, deeply annoying policy which says that the serving staff have to say "Yes" to all questions about "does it contain...?" even if it doesn't, on the grounds that keeping an allergy list is too hard.
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How is it possible for places to be unable to cater to your combination in a world where jacket potatoes exist?
(Though when my boss - a soy-intolerant, gf vegetarian - came over to visit the UK, she did end up basically living on the things for a week. Which was not as interesting for her as it might have been.)
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Which isn't really relevant to the conversation at all, except it's rather nice and people might like to try it.
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However, I have some hands and a keyboard, and it's quite a short recipe, so when the opportunity next presents itself I shall post it :)
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I asked what was in it, and he said goat's cheese. And salad.
I said that wasn't enough, because I needed something with starch / complex carbohydrates, like rice or potatoes. Could I perhaps have a side dish of rice or potatoes with the salad? I could pay extra for it. No. Well, perhaps I could have the mushroom risotto that was on the menu, and the goats cheese as a starter. No, this wasn't possible, the goats cheese was a main course. But I could have the mushroom risotto as a starter.
Which I did, and it was quite nice. I don't really understand salad in more than small doses and munching my way through it was a bit of a chore, but the goat's cheese and the risotto were both nice, even though the latter was made without stock.
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