It doesn't take much to pique my interest in the culinary world. A dish, a smell, a picture, an attitude, almost anything can become a catalyst for new endeavors. A dear friend developed Celiac Disease a few years ago, the perfect motivation to flex my culinary muscles you might think, but its been a long time since I first learned this about her.
Why have I been so stubborn in this regard? I should have very easily filled this role, and by rights I should be a master of gluten free cooking today. The reason, internet logophiles, is simple.
Soy flour noodles.
Somewhere along the line, during a very misguided experience in alternative health care, I was convinced that soy flour was the end all solution to all my worldly problems. I purchased a canister (very ritzy) of the stuff and noticed a recipe for noodles proudly adorning its cardboard periphery. "Haw" I thought, "noodles made from soy, surely this is not a ploy, definitely I can enjoy, ooh noodles made from desiccated soy", I laughed at my subtle wit, and then proceeded to crack eggs and beans alike into an amalgamate of crumbly yellow lentil scented, dough resembling material. I'll save you from the suspense now and tell you that nothing about this particular experiment worked, and 14 dollars worth of soy flour canister, and the 62 cents of soy flour it contained was destined for compost faster than a space ship travels through interstellar space, assuming that the space ship travels at the same speed by which a canister filled with broken dreams falls at terminal velocity from hand to trash.
The noodles became a yellow crumbly mess, and of course, they broke apart when boiled. Furthermore, the flavor was very unlike any pasta I had ever had before, and one I would rather not have again. This was 6 years ago, perhaps with newfound ambitions I could quash my gluten free inabilities.
After weeks of putting it off I made my plight internet bound, and I was immediately struck by the convolution and general backwardness of most of the resources to be found. Comparatively, if I am searching for a regular wheat bread recipe outside of my frequented and trusted websites, I would go for the website with the fewest and most basic recipes, and as much input from home bakers as possible. Unfortunately some digging is required before finding such a golden resource.
Separating the wheat from the chaff (gluten humor... HAW!) which litters the internet stores of gluten free baking recipes and information became a difficult and obsessive task for me. There are many websites with very poor quality recipes, and not having the history with obscure flours and ingredients, I had to rely on my previous experience in recipe reading to determine which websites could be trusted, and which needed to be avoided. First I searched simply for Celiac recipes, of which there are many. However I am not willing to buy prepared flours, or expensive gluten free bakers mix #5. Thats not the point of this whole exercise. The lack of feedback was also unsettling and a cause to rule out the vast majority of otherwise likely informative websites.
I searched blogs, knowing that in the world of blogs, feedback would not be an issue. Being assured of a real human behind the scenes testing out recipes was also a boon. Unfortunately, the number of professional Celiac bakers in the world is apparently pretty small, or at least those willing to put up authentic sounding recipes for free to the public.
Finally I directed myself to the BBC website, a website for british folk, and one which I have used with good success in the past. Their selection of recipes is very small, a good sign in my books, and they claimed a rigorous selection process for the recipes they were willing to stand behind. I chose to make their white soda bread, and their strawberry sponge. Alien looking recipes which required I abandon everything I knew previously about soda bread and sponges, which took less effort than expected.
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