The Intolerant Gourmet

It’s estimated that nearly 1 in 3 North Americans is lactose-intolerant and that 1 in 133 is gluten-intolerant, although many of these people remain undiagnosed. For those who do find out, the resulting dietary adjustments have traditionally been about restriction, denial, and deprivation. All these compromises drain the pleasure from eating.

Now, legendary food maven Barbara Kafka comes to the rescue with a complete soup-to-nuts cookbook full of great food that you can enjoy every day. Barbara’s own intolerances, dormant since childhood, returned five years ago, and—as someone who was already intolerant of bad food, ersatz ingredients, and poor cooking—she rose to the challenge of being gluten- and lactose-intolerant with this collection of 300 recipes. They get you to crispy without resorting to breading or flour coatings, offer silkiness and richness without dairy, and feature luxurious textures in sauces and soups without flour or butter.

Thanks to the creativity of Barbara Kafka, you can say good-bye to the blandest of diets and indulge in such delights as Chicken with Chervil Sauce, Roasted Salmon with Dill Sauce, Cannellini and Mushroom Soup, Corn Relish, and Asian Noodle Salad. The Intolerant Gourmet contains an enormous range of dishes that fit into many cherished culinary traditions (Asian, French, American, Italian, etc.). Each delicious recipe will satisfy anyone at the dinner table, whether intolerant or not.

The book also features tools such as a guide to gluten-free pastas and a comprehensive section on starches—their assets and detriments, the basic methods for preparing them, and the best ways of serving them. All is presented with insight and irrepressible wit (of her Simple Rib Roast, for instance, Barbara writes ,“My roast is rare, but no Saxon pillage”). The result is an indispensable reference tool, ideal for lovers of good food in search of an all-inclusive approach to cooking.