General Chat

Last time we cooked the village lunch, I bought several things especially to accommodate the vicar's coeliac disorder, some of which I would not want to eat. Luckily, somebody else was able to pass them on when the vicar did not turn up, yet again!

This time we are serving the previously discussed pork pie and the woman taking the bookings asked me if I was going to cut off the vicar's pastry.

I said I was not pandering to him again and he could cut off his own pastry. She slammed the phone down and will not speak to me!

Not very godly on her part now was it :-)

He being a man of God will accept the situation should he finally have the goodwill to make an appearance.

Was she serious about cutting the pastry off, Sharron?

I hope not or the vicar could be violently ill.

Am I guessing that the vicar has never shown his face at the village lunch or has he been once and never again? If so, I can guess why, poor soul.

She ill be cutting his pastry off. I don't know why because he is a grown man who could, I believe, be reasonably expected expected to be in charge of his own dietary requirements.

He comes to the lunch fairly regularly and people always have catered to his requirements, to the extent of cooking a completely separate meal that he didn't come along to eat.

As a vegetarian, I did not go to the lunch for a long time because I thought I might cause a lot of extra work for whoever was providing the £3.50 lunch and, when I did, I suggested I could bring my own cheese or whatever so as not to cause inconvenience.

Last time we catered, I bought four gluten-free bread rolls, you can't buy fewer, a jelly and a tin of fruit to accommodate him when he could not bother to come and eat it or phone the hall to apologize.

I am happy to provide him with the same as everybody else but I am not going to do anything out of the ordinary for him.

If he has been diagnosed as having Coeliac Disease, cutting off the pastry still leaves the filling contaminated which could leave him violently ill and up all night.

I have no idea whether the village lunches are substantial or not but I shop and cater for a coeliac member of the family every day and it is not at all difficult.

You'll be aware that preparation of food for a coeliac needs to be on a safe surface, one that has been thoroughly wiped clean of oats, wheat, barley and rye. It also needs clean utensils.

There would be no need for anyone to buy gluten-free bread unless you were having sandwiches/rolls. Save your money Sharron cos those four-pack rolls are much more expensive than our ordinary rolls as you'll have found out. In fact, my OH makes his own bread because he thinks shop-bought is too much like cardboard! If you do provide bread and he has butter with it, it would be safer to keep a small tub of spread especially for coeliac sufferers (and no one else) as the butter/spread must not have had any knives dipped in it that have been used to spread butter onto normal bread, crackers etc.

To be on the safe side at a gathering like that unless you want to read and check ingredients when shopping which will take time, I'd say no sauces, no gravy, no batter, no breadcrumbs and no cakes, biscuits or pastry even though he'll be able to eat gluten-free items of those.

Barring likes and dislikes, he can eat

Cornflour
Rice
Meat (all kinds)
Fish
Eggs
Cheeses
Green salads ( prepared on a clean board of course)
All vegetables
All fruit (as you already know)
Seabrook crisps are gluten-free; others aren't (apart from one really expensive brand I once bought) so I would stick to Seabrook.

Thinking about feeding the village in the summer, a nice salad with cold meat and grapes and cheese for afters could go down a treat and it would come in under budget - unless all piled their plates mountain-like.

In cold weather, a shepherds' pie or a cottage pie (check gravy before using it), any and all vegetables, followed by a rice pudding.

One of my favourite vegetarian dishes is roughly diced potatoes and sweet potatoes, star-crossed small tomatoes, quartered onions and sliced peppers, roasted in olive oil.

Everyone can then eat the same even though some of us like it served with a crusty roll.

For those who like the taste of meat, chunks of chicken can be added at the start of cooking.

For myself, I add slices of chorizo ring about six or seven minutes before the end of cooking. It gives a nice tangy taste - but I know not everyone likes that.

Good luck!

He may, may, just turn up if he knows no one is going to poison him by cutting off the pastry or daft things like using one knife for gluten and non-gluten items.

I hope he does and enjoys the food. :-D

It is for him to tell me what he requires. We are catering to the village and OH is a chef so we have a rough idea of what we are doing but I am not going to provide anything special for somebody who books in and does not appear.

If he wants to pick out what he can eat from what is provided then he can but I am not doing anything special if he can't make the effort to eat it.

I believe that cutting off the pastry has been adequate care when he has deigned to show up.

What does he eat when he has showed up, Sharron?

Just wondering, because if the pastry has been cut off and he has eaten the rest of the stuff, I'd say he has definitely not got full-blown Coeliac Disease or he has diagnosed himself as having it. Perhaps he just has an allergy to wheat?

My OH is very careful when we eat out but two hotels, both in the Lake District, managed to poison him, to the point that on one occasion he had a trip to hospital after vomiting and sitting on the loo all night. They were both aware that he needed gluten-free food too. We've never been back to them.

My grand daughter has Coeliac disease - she manages very well at my house, where I have a packet of frozen sausages for her vegetarian brother.
That's it!

Grand daughter has only recently been diagnosed, but, at 17, has enough 'savvy' to pick & choose!
It's a different matter if they are living with you.
Oh - and she can't eat rice, so not every Coeliac is the same.
Just do what you do, Sharron - let him be responsible for himself!
...after all - he has God on his side.......
(I could give you a link to Youtube, but won't)

I find it easy, Maggie, but I am well used to having a Coeliac in the house. He can eat rice and cooks with rice flour.

It's oats, wheat, barley and rye he is unable to digest at all. When we as a family get together I just cook the same meal for all of us so there's no faffing about - always have done.

I am surprised at the vicar in more ways than one.

I find harder to cater for is my vegan sister but I would get used to that if I saw her more regularly cos it ain't rocket science.

They should all be like me - whatever is put in front of me, I'll scoff. It's the way I was brought up. Sis came along much later and I keep telling her she got spoiled! :-D

Give the vicar the link, Maggie, it sounds like he could use it. :-S

I really do not have enough interest in the vicar to even think about his intestines.

I made the allowances I was told for him and he didn't come to eat it when everybody else did so he can sort out for himself what suits him.

Maggie, all rice is gluten-free but because you mentioned your granddaughter can't eat it has she checked why not?

I ask because a short while ago, rice was found that contained excessive amounts of arsenic. I hope she has not been affected that way.

The Coeliac Society may have something online about the contaminated rice.

Not sure, JoyLouise, when I say she 'can't eat' rice, it could be that, like me, she just doesn't care for it.
We both care even less for it since the arsenic thing.
I also never cook with olive oil.
I tend to cook Meat, spuds and veg meals, and they all cope, eating what they prefer/won't damage them.

My granddaughter has food intolerances and she sorts out for herself what she can eat when she goes out

She does carry around with her salad dressings that she can have to brighten up salads if that’s all she feels is suitable

It can be a problem for her but she knows what she can and can’t eat and doesn’t expect to be treated differently by folks

She feels her dietary needs are hers to cope with and not other people’s problem :-(

Maggie, when we are all together, I tend to cook like you - something we can all eat, such as meat or fish and vegies or salads, baked potatoes etc.

Neither our daughter nor I care much for rice but we will both eat it (or some of it) if we are at someone's house and that's what that person has cooked for us.

My OH has coped for years. Many moons ago if we went to our local for Sunday lunch (his pal's pub) he used to take his own gravy granules and they'd mix them with meat juices for him but pretty quickly they latched on and started using cornflour as a thickener instead of wheat-flour. Incidentally, at school we were taught always to use cornflour as a thickener, never ordinary flour.

It's a good idea to carry around your own dressing, Shirley. We always carry a snack for OH when we travel.

We landed at Melbourne once to find we were the only ones who had declared food in our baggage. (Plenty lied and although their queue was very long their baggage was checked and a huge variety of foodstuffs was binned.). Anyway, we formed a queue of two (OH and I). The guy looked at the food we had ( g-free crisps, crackers and biscuits), glanced at OH's doctor's note, zipped up our hold-all and waved us off with a cheery 'A man's got to eat.'

Incidentally, from very early on we found that Victorian Aussies catered extremely well for coeliacs. From what I've read, more people of Irish descent suffer from the disease so it made sense because there are a lot of people descended from the Irish there. They learned quick smart I think.

So, we have done the village lunch and the vicar turned up to have his pie that the woman had cut the crusts off for him.

Not knowing that she had already made him a sugar free jelly, I asked him if he could eat oats.

Would you believe that he doesn't know?! The woman had told him he couldn't anyway.

My coeliac OH can,t eat oats. Gluten free or not. They are in a growing number of GF foods.

The result of eating even a tiny amount is devastating. You don,t want to know more tan that!

Both the coeliacs in my house would react to the vicars pie - even with the pastry cut off.

As would my coeliac OH, Names. I think I mentioned it earlier.

Mine can only eat gluten-free oats.

The vicar surprises me, Sharron.

The vicar amazes me. I a told that, rather than upset somebody, he will eat what will make him ill.

Surely a grown up would know rather more about their illness.

Oh well, it's not my intestine.

The vicar amazes me. I a told that, rather than upset somebody, he will eat what will make him ill.

Surely a grown up would know rather more about their illness.

Oh well, it's not my intestine.