Mr Grumpy

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By Mr Grumpy - Fri 24th Jan 2014

 

I am intolerant of those with food intolerances.

Seriously, in the year 2014 it seems that every 3rd person deems it the height of fashion to be Gluto-Lacto-Ovo-Bovo-Sucro intolerant, and to be frank it gives me the shits.

Growing up in the 1970s I had the fortune/misfortune to have been brought up by parents who were in turn brought up in the shadow of ration books and powdered egg.

Don't finish your main course and you don't get any pudding : simple but effective.

And I can never recall as a snotty-nosed 6 year old in 1979, that any of my mates queuing for their spotted Dick at School would ask the Dinner Ladies if the custard contained egg or aspartame.

So why now ?

A couple of years ago the Mrs jumped on the bandwagon and went for food intolerance testing on nothing more than a whim. She didn't feel under the weather at the time but fell for the hype that unless she required just 4 hours sleep a night, or ran a Marathon every weekend, then there must be something wrong with her.

So she went for a few needles sticking in her arm, and spat on a few bits of litmus paper and the quack decided that she had an intolerance to "Cheese, Dairy, Carbs and Alcohol".

So intolerant to around 75% of most people's average diet - and oddly enough the exact same diagnosis that 7 other people who we knew to receive the testing got.

So 6 weeks of arsing around with a restricted diet, and messing around slowly introducing foods to 'rebalance her body', we found that she felt the sum total of no better at all.

So that's why I find it so refreshing to eat in a Spanish Restaurant - better still a Menu del Dia at home-cooked take-it-or-leave-it bar.

A vegetarian would find dining out challenging : The eponymous green V rarely appears on a Spanish menu.

So I'm just wondering how a small-town local bar would deal with a potential diner who didn't eat Ham, was allergic to eggs and was Dairy and Gluten intolerant.

Probably the same way any decent restauranteur should.