Allergy-free Cookbook by Alice Sherwood

I am so going to be dating myself with this, but about 8 or so years ago I started working on a degree in the field of naturopathy, specifically nutrition and herbology. I did my first year, and while working on my second year, the long term relationship I was in ended. Rather emphatically, and I didn't end up finishing. My interest in the subject hasn't abated any, just circumstances and my focus has shifted a little. In truth, the woman who was my herbology instructor impressed me so much that I used to say that I wanted to be her when I grew up! Her name was Jennifer, and she was the kind of teacher who firmly believed that the best way to learn something was to go out and do it, and get yourself dirty while you're at it! Have fun might not have been her official motto, but she certainly seemed to enjoy her everyday life, and I think of her fondly, and miss her too (as a grandmother, though a young one, the last I saw her she as about to go back to school herself to become a registered homeopath; I hope she succeeded!)

I don't remember which class it was specifically or even what material we were covering at the time, but the subject of gluten came up (she and her husband were also farmers; I often wondered when she slept) and how everything changed after WWII. All those hungry soldiers came home, and no one wanted a repeat of the Depression era hunger, so hello genetic tinkering. I remember mentally ticking off all the boxes as she described the symptoms that come with not being able to properly digest gluten: bloating, mental fuzziness, cramping, swelling of joints, being hungry.... Fill in the blanks with anything I missed. By the end of class, I decided to do an experiment and cut out all guten for 2 weeks, just to see. My partner at the time was not really happy about this, but consoled himself with it being only 2 weeks. The people I worked with couldn't believe that I would even try to do something so restrictive or required so much work. By the third day, I couldn't believe how amazing I felt! I truly remember pausing when I realized how simply awake I was in the middle of the afternoon, with a tonne of energy, and just happy. Seriously content just being where and who I was. By the end of the 2 weeks, however, the experiment was pretty much abandoned. My former partner was Eastern European and firmly believed that you should serve bread as a side to sandwiches, and the options available for substitutes (at that time) weren't many and were a little prohibitive cost wise. Plus, I overcooked a batch of rice-pasta and that was it; back to a regular diet we went.

Fast forward about 5 years and I was happily single and trying to remember everything I could about the experiment as I was about to start living it 24/7. I was very glad to be able to have such a positive memory to hold on to, as it became obvious quickly that I still needed a reference source of some kind. Any time I feel out of my depths, the first thing I do is find a book, and since for this, the best kind of book would involve recipes, I got right on it!

The very first book I ever got myself was Allergy-Free Cookbook: no eggs, no dairy, no nuts, no gluten byAlice Sherwood. I spent a very happy afternoon at a Chapters one day and went through a whole pile of books before settling on this one. I will admit that I was influenced by the photography as I am a sucker for pretty pictures, but in a cook book, I think that's kind of important actually!

The opening section of the book is very informative, which factored into my decision to choose this one. Without needing to be able to translate medicalese, she goes into the differences between an intollerance and a allergy; she covers what the differences in reactions are for the more common food culprits (nuts, eggs, dairy and gluten); how to read ingredients labels (Note: Ms. Sherwood is British, so some of the words are not often used in daily North American speak, but you don't need to understand Cockney rhyme either) and what to watch out for, and quite a bit of other very useful information, especially for someone who has just been dumped into the world of food restrictions. She also has each recipe marked to indicate which allergen it does not contain, with the recipe modified to excude other allergens in the margens, making it very easy to figure out how to prepare each dish for your personal needs.

I have played with a lot of the recipes in this book, and there are a few that have become my Go To for when I want certain things (Foccacia p. 173, Osso Bucco p.118 and Noodles in hot ginger broth p.142 for example), but for me, this books best recipes really are in the savoury department. They go together quickly without being overly complicated or requiring ingredients that are difficult to find. They also present really nicely, which makes me think that they probably didn't need to do too much to the pictures to make them print ready; they get bonus points for that! I actually have to be careful with the book when I take it off the shelf as it's stuffed with little bits of paper holding the pages of the recipes I still have to try.

This is, however, not my go to book for baking and sweets. It might not be fair of me, but this is where the recipe for the infamous "chocolate brick-and-mortar" cake came from, and it was my first attempt, but the sweets and treats really aren't my favourites. I should probably go back, now that I've found flour mixes and other baking supplies that I know I can count on to try some of her cakes again, but I haven't yet. I will say that I Do very much enjoy the carrot cake recipe, as that was one of my first successes, and it came out exactly right!

Having said that, I would buy this again, or gift it to someone just starting out with food restrictions (with some recomendations based on experience). I would also suggest this to someone who has people in their life with restrictions that they would like to be able to cook for and also just wanted a good cookbook!