[Sca-cooks] menu planning for dietary restrictions...

[Anne-Marie Rousseau]

Personally?  I also think diet soda is anathema. I mean, if you want a
soda, drink a soda. If you want something fizzy, tehre's lots of lovely
fizzy drinks that don't have all the nasty chemicals (I'm a big fan of
tangerine seltzer :)). One could even mix ones own...a bit of seltzer,
some fruit juice? Or just a twist?

But then I prefer my caffeine in iced tea form (mmm....iced green
tea....). guess I'm just weird that way ;). I never really cared for
colas except for medicinal purposes (when you don't drink them normally
and you're driving through the night, there's nothing better to keep you
going....course then you cant sleep for a day after.... ;))

Its always been interesting to me how many people go with "substitutes".
Diet soda. Fake meat. Fake cheese. Fake sugars. They never taste like
the real thing, and to my mind just drive home just what I'm missing. I
find it far more satisfying to simply choose foods that don't include
the forbidden ingredients to start with.

Cant do refined sugar? You can make a lovely fruit tart that is simply
sweetened by its own juices. Cant do meat? Beans and cheese are very
tasty. Cant do dairy? (oof that one would be very hard for me) but you
can make a zillion dishes without dairy in them. Wheat? Spelt is tasty!
Corn is awesome (mmm polenta with pasta sauce...). see what I mean?

If you're doing medieval food, its very possible to create a lovely well
balanced meal that satisfies our modern concepts of what is "healthy" by
simply chooseing those dishes that don't include ingredients we don't
want. And for me, I'd much rather go that route than using substitutes
like fake eggs, or splenda (bleh) or god forbid, margarine.

--AM