So...What do you eat?

Last week we started a Candida diet that was also (mostly) free of gluten, casein, corn, and a host of other smaller allergens. 
The verdict?  Success.  And Mr. Violets is sick of salad. 

In the world of food allergies, one question seems to arise more than any other.  At least, when the subject of either corn or gluten is involved.  That questions is..."What do you eat?"  (said in a variety of tones ranging from pity to suspicion or outrage) 
So here's a list of dinner dishes for a week's worth of meals. 

Baked cod on a bed of spinach and onions.  (3 thumbs up.  Bumblebee declined to taste.)
Homemade 'quiche' (4 wavery thumbs up.  It's better with some sort of cheese.  Off the candida diet, we make two dishes, one with dairy cheese one with dairy free corny cheese.) 
Chicken breast with mashed turnips and salad.  (It's better than it sounds.  3 thumbs up, Bumblebee only gives a 4th thumb up for the salad.  But she at least contemplated the turnips.) 
Tuna casserole.  (not gourmet, but we like it.) 
Crepes with nut butter and soup. 
Spaghetti soufflee
Omelets 

There are a lot of eggs in there, but eggs are a good source of protein, calories and fat.  And they're cheap, which goes a long ways in their favor.  Next week, we're looking forward to Mr. Violet's diet including beans and sweet potatoes again...adding several potential delights to our menu. 

We found that the second week was a bit harder than the first week.  We wanted to revert to our old "make a starch and everyone chooses their own veggies and protein" cycle.  And the heat wave that hit made our appetites wane.  But we seem to be muddling through.  Tonight's menu is stuffed squash for Mr. Violets and the girls; leftovers for me.  Not bad; and could be made corn free if you have a safe source of ground beef.  (or you could probably use lentils.  They aren't listed on the candida free diet, and I haven't actually tried adding them back to my own diet...but I can't eat squash and am still deciding how well tomato sits.) While nothing we made was gourmet, and probably doesn't compete much with restaurant fare, it was homey and tasty and filling.  What more can you ask for? 
That it feed a whole family?  Well, it did that, too.  (Or it would have if Bumblebee were just a little less stubborn.  But again, she tried and gets points for eating salad almost everynight.) 

Cook Naked

This was the theme of a post in honor of this article, which sheds a little more light and awareness on food sensitivities.  Although I must say, the title and the article weren't as developed as I expected.  The concept rings true.
I find with food allergies, my goal is simplicity.  Simple flavors.  Texture.  Few ingredients.  I don't have a lot to work with, and the more we use at one time, the more risk there seems to be.
Spices, the salt of life, are still limited here.  After all, the best way to stop them from clumping is to add corn starch.  And some of them, of their own accord, bite back.
Sauces...a common and easy way to spice up just about anything old and boring are a powerhouse of hidden gluten, corn, preservatives and artificial colors.  Not to mention other possible allergens.
New ingredients, new flavors, bring new fears.  Anything can cause a reaction and when you have confirmed food intolerance, your food fears are founded in experience and have little to nothing to do with taste buds.
So for us, when I think of cooking with food allergies, "cook naked" makes perfect sense.  It's not about avoiding specific ingredients, because only a person who is allergic to an ingredient truly understands their own level of tolerance.  Some people with Celiac Disease only eat certified gluten free products.  Others simply read the label. 
For me, "cooking naked" means cooking simply, transparently.  Enjoying the full flavor of foods, without having to disguise them.  It's peas, simmered and dressed with a bit of oil (or butter...at the table) and salt.  It's sweet potatoes, roasted in their own juices and a touch of approved oil.  It's brown rice parboiled in water or homemade broth.  And broth that is made with just carrots, celery and onions...no boillion cubes or MSG or autolyzed yeast extract.  It's what you see is what you get. 
Cooking naked is all about letting food speak for itself.  Several months ago, a child was spending an afternoon with Bumblebee and they clamored for a snack.  I offered celery or apples.  The child looked at the celery and said "That looks like a PLANT!"  To which I agreed it did...it still had the leaves at the end.  Her eyes got wide before she said "My mom will not be happy if I come home and say I ate a plant!"  
Penguin felt immensely sorry for the child as soon as the statement was spoken, and has mentioned the incident several times since.  I think shame (of our abnormal diet) and horror that the child didn't realize that vegetables and plants are one and the same are equally disturbing to her. 
And that, perhaps, to me is the heart of cooking naked.  As much as I want Bumblebee and Penguin to fit in...I want them to know what real food is and where it comes from.  And so, we will continue to have celery in it's natural state, attempt to grow a few fruits and veggies in our yard, eat undressed sweet potatoes and place more value on the nutritional value of food than on it's looks. 
Maybe, if we didn't have food allergies, we wouldn't have thought so much about what we eat, and what's in what we eat.  But that just means that food allergies has done us a favor by making us more aware, not just of the content of our food supply, but of the nutritional content (and lack thereof).  It's made us want to know what's in our food, so we can appreciate it more. 
Besides, the simpler our meals, the less time we have to spend preparing them.  

It appears I'm not the only one who feels overwhelmed by the concept of cooking from scratch, preparing meals (namely meat) and planning around ingredients.
It's a cultural thing.
Americans have slowly allowed the "cooking culture" to die out. Through a generation (or two) of Cathy comics (I made my favorite thing for dinner, Reservations!) and latchkey kids with TV dinners and microwave meals, Julia Child has become a household legend...and fallen from the ranks of female empowerment to the unachievable Martha Stewart or Donna Reed.
According to this article by Michael Pollan (who first revealed the corn controversy to the masses in Omnivore's Nation) We, as a nation, don't cook anymore.
The 8 pages are a lot to wade through on screen, however, it's an interesting read.
I still think my meat eating husband could give the vegetarian a hand in planning meals that involve flesh foods (and their leftovers) But I also think that much of the country is in the same boat we are.
Although, I must say...it seems like it would be easier if I didn't have to worry so much about corn in every new potential ingredient.

Slow Food

There was a time prior to the allergy diagnosis when we ate "normal" processed foods, and yearned for something more. A return to "old" cooking. I quickly learned that this meant different things to my husband and I.

One year, I wanted to do something special for his birthday. I was still trying to wrack my brain when he commented idly how much he missed butterscotch pudding.

Pudding?

Yes, pudding. But not just any pudding. Not the little plastic cups that you get at the store, and not the instant boxes. Real pudding. Old fashioned pudding. His eyes closed as he broke into a fond reminiscence...He conjured for me an image of his mother, with a frilly apron, slaving for hours over a hot stove, stirring a pot full of bubbling butterscotch pudding. She'd always have to make a double batch, and there were never leftovers.

The next time I saw his mom I asked about her recipe. She was vague. Pudding is pudding. She suggested I just buy some and tell him it was homemade.

Undaunted, I called her. I asked again, seeking specifics. Again, she was vague. It was a long time ago, she said, you don't want to go through all that trouble. Its all the same anyways.

But the trouble was going to be part of the gift. This confirmed to me it was real, old fashioned pudding she used to make. The good stuff I'd read about pioneer day books. I perused cookbooks. I looked online. Finally, I found something that looked promising. I carefully gauged the grocery bill that week to allow for real butter and actual cream. I measured, poured, and pot-watched. I stirred until my shoulders screamed for mercy. I entreated the toddler to entertain the baby. I almost cried when bits of scrambled egg appeared, but quickly grabbed a sieve and scooped most of them out.

At last, we proudly, albeit nervously, presented the concoction to my surprised husband. Who took a bite, and tried to conceal his disappointment. Shrugged and while I can't remember everything he said, I do remember one sentence. "Maybe she used a different brand. We could call her and ask."

Brand? Brand? Brand of what? Vanilla? Did she use real scotch? (I'd opted against that recipe) This had become a vendetta for me. I wanted to get it right. Was it the bit of egg that scrambled? WHAT?!?

He gave me a funny look.
Later his mom confirmed that "old fashioned" pudding was the famous J-brand...it comes in a box. (Eventually the enormity of my cooking fiasco was also made clear to my beloved husband, and he apologized for not being more grateful. He'd never fathomed the possibility that one could make pudding out of brown sugar, eggs and cream; let alone that it could take any more time or effort than baking muffins, which I did regularly.)

I think of this story with a chuckle whenever the concept of cooking from scratch is brought up. Because it seems that every generation over the past 100 years has it's own new idea of fast food, and it's own brand of nostalgic "from scratch" cooking. First those lucky town ladies who could waltz into the corner butcher shop for steak, or veal or chicken parts rather than keeping and slaughtering their own. Then the canned soup revelution. As soon as freezers became a household staple, there were TV dinners. And we've progressed.

My daughter pleaded for a cookbook at the last school bookfair, and when I leafed through it we found that not one of the recipes called for any fresh ingredients. They were all branded products. A woman at a Girl Scout meeting asked about our food allergies, and mentioned that while it seems hard for kids it also doesn't seem like a very big lifestyle change. She makes everything from scratch.

Of course I was interested...But very quickly learned that "from scratch" means using prepackaged ingredients along with some fresh herbs and prepackaged spice mixes to create a new dish. My vision was fresh baked bread, dicing veggies, and canning fruit. I suppose the dicing veggie part was accurate. She was offended that I consider sliced bread "packaged". Let alone her canned tomatoes.

Scratch cooking is a lost art. People don't know what a rhubarb is, much less what to do with one. Do you cook radishes? Are onions supposed to be this papery? How do you carve a Turkey? And what is this weird packet inside it? The term "cooking from scratch" has come a long way in the past hundred years ago. In fact, a hundred years ago, I doubt the term even existed.

There was a point in time when cooking a meal meant beginning with the decision of which chicken was next to slaughter. Meal planning was automatic. You went to your pantry, you put together what was there. There were signature dishes, of course, but as authors who try to create period style recipe books tell us, the expected results may vary significantly from today's standards.

My peers look with trepidation at an artichoke. My husband asks if he can toss the parsnips, assuming some carrots have gone bad. A woman in the store complains about the dirt left clinging to a potato, which makes me laugh. With a corn allergy, I look for dirt on my produce. Dirt means it's real. It's fresh. It hasn't been polished with corn derived wax, or rinsed with special germ fighting corny solution. Corn allergy has resurrected an understanding of "scratch".

It's also brought about an appreciation of simple food. Pasta with oil and a few veggies is delicious, elegant, and easy. Bread is a luxury, not a daily right. Rice is versatile. It goes well with beans, or eggs, or veggies or soup. And it's easy...rinse, glance through for stones (Which are hard on the teeth, but gluten, corn and casein free) and cook. Eggs are the ultimate fast food. If you want to enhance a vegetable, roast it with onions. The scent of caramelized onion will improve any meal and spark almost anyone's appetite.

I'm still struggling to come to terms with using meat, too. I can see the beauty in the simplicity. A roast chicken, a vegetable, a starch and you're done. However, there's a huge hole in my meal planning history that never included meat to begin with. I was raised vegetarian in the Seven Talents post-seventies granola era. Grains were high priority, although our doctors encouraged a heavy hand with the cheese. Until recently, we were encouraged to simply combine grains well. Eat a variety of supermarket and restaurant offerings. Too much thinking is discouraged. Look for an explosion of flavors, pour mixes and boxes together. Voila! A taste sensation.

Even the medical community, who is supposed to be supporting the slow food revolution, is slow to accept the movement. "And try to cut back on the fast food," the pediatrician always admonishes as we leave the office. I give him a withering look, but our lifestyle, our real, honest to goodness eating at home every night lifestyle, is beyond comprehension.

However, I'm still struggling to master the art of June Cleaver style cooking, and balance the pyramid.