Tuesday, April 01, 2008

You Cannot Convince Me That This Is Good

Many years ago, I was a vegetarian. I was a vegetarian while living in Oklahoma. This is equivalent to standing on your roof and shouting “I am a flaming liberal, please don your white sheets and burn a cross on my lawn because I AM NOT LIKE YOU.”

Back in my veggie killin’ days, I never went for the tofu or tempeh or “fake meat”. I would occasionally alter recipes to make them vegetarian but I refused to make “fake food”.

Now, as I’m eating gluten free, I find myself returning to the same mantra. There are a lot of gluten free products out there. And many of these are nasty, disgusting, and dirt flavored products. In fact, after spending a weekend with various baking experiments all made with gluten free “flour” products, I have realized that fake flour products really upset my stomach. One gluten free banana muffin = 15 hours of heartburn. They also give the mouth feel reminiscent of a windy day at the beach.

I also have tried several varieties of pasta products that have actually made me do that annoying toddler trick of taking a bite, sticking your tongue out, and gagging. Now, you’d think that cooking up a pot of extremely expensive pasta would at least make me realize that I am a grown up and I could at least eat this one plate of disgusting crap and then never buy it again. Well, I also realize life is too short for oral torture.

So, here I sit. I have just wiped the gluten free biscotti off my tongue and fished the dirt flavored crumbs out of my coffee. I visit many blogs and websites that proclaim how great it is to be gluten free and such and such a recipe is wonderful and boy, it is sure great to be them!!!

And I sure wish I knew what they were smoking because maybe that is the only good gluten free product out there.

2 comments:

Rebecca Hartong said...

Hey Debbie! You might consider trying some Indian recipes. In the southern part of India, there's not a long history of growing wheat so people make "crepes" and "donut-y" things using soaked and then finely ground rice and/or lentils. Sometimes the grain is allowed to ferment a tiny bit to increase the rise. Also try chickpea flour. It's excellent for breading and frying veggies.

Lisa said...

I was just going to suggest using chickpea flour. I will say, 100% chickpea flour substituted for regular flour requires some additional spices (pumpkin muffin recipe for example) but is a nice alternative. Definitely worth giving a try.

Sorry to hear about the tongue wiping, I know how you feel.