Goldacre, McKeith, Kittens and Desperation

I have been meaning to link to this excellent article on the desperation that many people feel in attempting to get a diagnosis for vague but nonetheless annoying symptoms. The ongoing recipe testing (see posts passim) denied me the time to do so.

I am prompted to resurrect it by the fuss across the blogosphere created by Ben Goldacre’s slating of Gillian McKeith. He does not pull his punches: his kitten has been “awarded” the same “PhD” as McKeith.

Stephen Pollard also notes an earlier, subtler article by the aptly named Rachel Cooke, which finishes with a flourish that is more relevant to our topic:

This isn’t down to all the bad science (though that is wearying enough). No, the real problem with her is that she is so anti-life. Food is about history, and culture, and ritual. But not for her the artisan cheese-maker, or the fifth-generation baker, or the man with an ancient vine. Many of the foods she recommends are not even indigenous to these islands; flying them here literally costs the earth. Most of all, though, it bothers me that there is so little that is celebratory – or even vaguely pleasurable – about her regimes.

Drawing these threads together, I think there are two points to note:

1) Prior to the diagnosis of allergies (of more or less any sort), people can be prey to all sorts of alternative remedies of possibly dubious efficacy. If you can’t replicate the results in a clinically rigorous double-blind trial, you may well be looking at a placebo effect.

2) After a diagnosis, you shouldn’t have to live like a monk. The whole point of the diagnosis is to enable to you to get your life back, not to have it taken away again by some other means.

That’s what this book is for: food that works for food allergy sufferers that EVERYONE will enjoy.

Foody Heaven

I’m afraid I’m teasing now, because I can’t begin to imagine that any of this is dairy, egg or gluten free. In fact, you are almost certain to be condemned to burn in Hell just by looking at this site. Naughty, but very very nice.

Recipe Testing: Tarte Normande

Normandy, in Northern France, is famous for its apples. It is also famous for quite a few of the things that the Normans make from these apples – cider and calvados being particularly notable. You could therefore expect that a Tarte Normande has at least a passing acquaintance with the fruit.

You would be right.

Here’s the various stages of preparation – it’s quite a batch job as even a small tart uses a surprising quantity and it would be wrong to be miserly.

It does help – as it does with most things – to have a decent paring knife. This one is made by WÜSTHOF DREIZACK – one of the two superb German kitchen knife companies.

 Once assembled onto the (gluten, dairy and egg free) pastry case that has been filled with (gluten and dairy free) almond filling, it looks like this:

It looks a little unwieldy, the way the apples are piled up so high above the tart. But it all comes right in the end, especially after it has been glazed to make it look delicious.

Perfect with a splash of cream.

Recipe Testing: Summer Berry Tart

The pastry, as we’ve seen with the Treacle Tart, can be made with a variety of gluten-, egg- and/or dairy-free alternatives. The crême patisserie is gluten and egg free anyway and can be made dairy free very easily. The summer berries, well they’re just summer berries.

As you can see, it is very important to have LOTS of summer berries.

And the boys all think that it’s very important to have LOTS of summer berries. Mind you that’s only because they want to eat them all before lunchtime.

But by the time you’ve let the adults at it, it’s largely academic.

YUM.