Italy, the land of gluten free greatness

I want to move. Not only can you get gluten free beer, but everyone seems to understand exactly what “intolerente al glutine” means. Now i even know how to pronounce it right.

Ok, so it seems a bit weird to walk into the pharmacy and buy beer, but that is where all gluten free products are sold. In addition to a few bottles, i also bought home some yummy sundried tomato and oregano bread and some frozen fresh ravioli. I can’t remember the last time i had stuffed pasta, and this stuff was great!

As for restaurants, the first night we were in Pisa, we went to a place called “spaghetteria” - usually the type of place i would avoid entirely! When i explained that “sono intolerente al glutine”, and started listing “no pizza, no pasta, no pane, no inpanare…” the server cut me off and said “si, si, si…” then he pointed out immediately what could and couldn’t have.

We went to a restaurant off the beaten track in Florence that was recommended by our guide book. But it was so far off the beaten track that the menu wasn’t translated into English and the owner was a bit surprised to have tourists. When i went into my little speech in Italian, he also understood right away and told me that all the pasta sauces are gluten free and that he had gluten free pasta that he could make separately for me and i could choose the sauce i wanted.

My perfect al dente pasta was so good that Arnaud said that he couldn’t tell the difference between that and wheat pasta. I also ordered a second course that i didn’t know was normally served on bread – vegetarian carpaccio with cheese and walnuts. It was brought to me on rice cakes. He said that most of the deserts were gluten free as well, but i didn’t let him get much further down the list than the chocolate mousse!

All that with a bottle of chianti, it was a great meal!

More about the rest of our trip later....