The Intolerant Gourmet: Glorious Food without Gluten and Lactose

by Barbara Kafka

Overview

At last—a cookbook of pleasure, not compromise, for those with food intolerances

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.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781579653941
Publisher:	Artisan
Publication date:	11/10/2011
Pages:	272
Sales rank:	264,694
Product dimensions:	7.90(w) x 9.20(h) x 1.10(d)

About the Author

Few have done more to define how Americans prepare food than Barbara Kafka, whose IACP and James Beard award-winning books Roasting and Microwave Gourmet made two underutilized techniques central to everyday cooking. Ms. Kafka is a former food editor of Vogue and a frequent contributor to The New York Times. She lives in New York and Vermont. The author of Artisan's Soup: A Way of Life and Vegetable Love, Barbara Kafka's immense achievements were recognized once more in 2007, when the James Beard Foundation gave her its Lifetime Achievement Award. Her most recent book is The Intolerant Gourmet: Glorious Food Without Gluten & Lactose.

Editorial Reviews

A cooking encyclopedia, rethought for people who need to avoid [gluten and lactose. Kafka’s] ratings of packaged gluten-free pasta in The Intolerant Gourmet: Glorious Food Without Gluten & Lactose will be worth the price of the book for many.” – The Atlantic
— Corby Cummer

The Atlantic

A cooking encyclopedia, rethought for people who need to avoid [gluten and lactose. Kafka’s] ratings of packaged gluten-free pasta in The Intolerant Gourmet: Glorious Food Without Gluten & Lactose will be worth the price of the book for many.” – The Atlantic

The Atlantic - Corby Cummer

A cooking encyclopedia, rethought for people who need to avoid [gluten and lactose. Kafka’s] ratings of packaged gluten-free pasta in The Intolerant Gourmet: Glorious Food Without Gluten & Lactose will be worth the price of the book for many.

The Atlantic - Corby Kummer

Barbara Kafka distills a lifetime of cooking in The Intolerant Gourmet. . . . A sophisticated general cookbook.”
—New York Times Book Review
 
“Gluten- and lactose-free meals without a single compromise.”
—Everyday Food
 
“Kafka’s seventh book, The Intolerant Gourmet, makes her a pioneer again. . . . While many books in this [dairy- and gluten-free] genre take the substitution approach — ‘Here’s what I want to eat, how can I make it?’ — Kafka did the opposite: she set out to make delicious foods that just happen to live within new parameters.”
—Associated Press
 
“This book is a breath of fresh air.”
—Winston-Salem Journal
 
“Gorgeous dishes, worthy of a dinner party, without laboratory chemicals or apologies.”
—Buffalo News
 
“A cooking encyclopedia, rethought for people who need to avoid a number of foods. Just [Kafka’s] ratings of packaged gluten-free pasta in The Intolerant Gourmet: Glorious Food Without Gluten & Lactose will be worth the price of the book for many.”
—The Atlantic
 
“This book appeals to both the gluten- and dairy-intolerant and the rest of us.”
—Rochester Democrat and Chronicle
 
“Chock full of food that tastes good.”
—Newark Star-Ledger

From the Publisher

James Beard Lifetime Achievement Award winner Kafka (Vegetable Love) has gluten and lactose allergies that reemerged later in life. Unwilling to give up her gourmet lifestyle after years spent enjoying a variety of food, she set about learning to cook without wheat or dairy. This cookbook—with a whole chapter dedicated to pasta and risotto, not to mention recipes for white bread, pancakes, and doughnuts—does not give the impression that it is only for those with dietary restrictions. VERDICT This title covers a lot of territory, but it is perhaps best for home cooks willing to take chances. While Kafka explains certain techniques and offers an introduction to basic gluten- and dairy-free pantry staples, many recipes assume a certain degree of ability and knowledge.—Laura Krier, California Digital Lib., Oakland

Library Journal

…the challenge of cooking without milk and cream is far less familiar than doing without flour, and Kafka rises to that, too, in a book that's really a sophisticated general cookbook.
—The New York Times Book Review

Corby Kummer