[Sca-cooks] Published ingredient lists (was "minor rant")

Terry Decker t.d.decker at att.net
Wed May 9 05:35:34 PDT 2012


You list ALL of the ingredients and you make yourself aware of the problems 
you may encounter.  For the most part, I work from basic raw foodstuffs.

One question I couldn't handle was whether the yeast I used had been grown 
on potato starch or some other starch.  I was using a bulk brewer's/baker's 
yeast that had been broken out into clear plastic bags for sale at a local 
health food store (the best local source for larger quatities of yeast that 
has gone to selling Bob's Red Mill).  All I could say was avoid the bread.

At the same feast another person inquired about mushrooms with the concern 
that many many prepared sauce products have mushrooms in them.  I was happy 
to tell her that all of the dishes and all of the suaces had been prepared 
from scratch and there were no mushrooms in the mix.

If I have the time, I try to make everything from scratch to control the 
ingredients, the quality, and the verisimilitude.  I try to list all 
ingredients.  I try to know all of allergies people have in nearby groups. 
I ask people to contact me early about specific dietary requirements.  And I 
try to steer them clear of problems.  Do your best and hope others do 
theirs.

Bear



> So how far do people go with their ingredient lists? If you buy 
> bread/prepared mustard/etc. Do you publish all the ingredients for those 
> items as well, or do you check the ingredient lists on any items you buy 
> to go into your dishes?
>
>
> For example, do you publish the ingredients that are in your breadcrumbs 
> on the ingredient list, or do you simply say "breadcrumbs"?
>
>
> The reason I'm asking is that for this event I have multiple breads, some 
> of which I'm buying, and this time I checked the ingredients for the 
> breads and some of them contain sesame and barley - two of the allergies 
> I'm working around. If I hadn't checked, and then used those breads in 
> other dishes as thickening agents, that would mean that the dishes the 
> crumbs were used in would have the barley and/or sesame as well, but 
> listing "bread crumbs" wouldn't tell someone that.
>
> I also have a salad that calls for stoneground mustard in the dressing. I 
> have someone who is allergic to alcohol, to the point that she can't have 
> wine vinegar, either. I happened to check the ingredient list on a jar of 
> stoneground mustard and wine vinegar was listed. While I generally 
> substitute cider vinegar in many recipes for the benefit of this 
> individual (sometimes on the whole dish, sometimes simply on a separated 
> portion), I would have given her this mustard without a second thought if 
> I hadn't known her allergy ahead of time. On an ingredient list, I would 
> only have listed "stoneground mustard", which wouldn't have told her that 
> she couldn't eat it, either.
>




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