A Peruvian gluten free restaurant round up!

I’ve picked four restaurants to highlight, in cities you’ll probably visit if you weave your way to Peru.

Jack’s Cafe, Cusco

A huge gringo favourite. Normally we’d probably avoid this place, but coming to Cusco from Bolivia where we had our share of tummy upsets we really appreciated something that felt safe. They are good with allergies and I can highly recommend the big breakfast and nachos, but personally I loved the drinks. Awesome hot chocolate and mango and strawberry lassi.

Nuna Raymi, Cusco

(Slightly drunk looking, but the bread is glutenfree! )

A little treat, normally probably a bit out of or price range but it was our leaving meal after volunteering with NGO Taxi and a great night. It makes my noteworthy list add they were really good with The gluten free thing, had a large selection of dishes I could eat and served bread baskets with three kinds of gluten free breads!

Astrid y Gaston, Lima

OK, this was a crazy treat. This is the number 18 restaurant in the world and so a little out of our normal budget. It’s £70 for their 28 course tasting menu, which lasts about 3 hours. We had to go as this is so much more affordable than its European equivalents. On booking (only the day before for lunch, months for dinner) we told them about coeliac disease and they said they would adapt the menu for me. Gluten didn’t feature heavily in the boyfriend’s food, but whenever it did I had an equally wonderful gluten free alternative! Money very well spent. (And don’t worry if you only have shabby clothes, ours were awful but at lunch at least it’s perfectly fine)

Raw Cafe, Lima

A more reasonable find. All the menu here is gluten free, healthy and delicious. A bit of a walk but very worth it. We wanted to go back but ran out of time; the pizza and a sun dried tomato and linseed base was great, as was the chocolate avocado mousse dessert. The juices are also some of the best we’ve had in restaurant, the hulk (spinach, apple and other green things) is recommended!

Peru, a gluten free guide

So Peru was a bountiful country as far as food goes (it is pretty awesome in general as well). I tried a lot of food i’ve never thought about eating before and there were only a few things I couldn’t try. Great news, book your flight now!

Local cuisine
Cuy, probably better known to you as Guinea pig, is much feted local fare, and naturally gluten free, clearly. It violated my food work: pleasure ratio (too much attacking a carcass, not enough meat) for it to be a favourite, but it certainly is interesting.

Likewise alpaca meat won’t be added to my staple diet, despite being low fat and tasty tasty. I just can’t reconcile eating it with my love of the animals. Especially when I found out only the ones younger than 18 months are suitable to eat. Hypocritical maybe, but everyone has a line.

Ceviche on the other hand I could eat for days. Raw seafood marinated in lime juice, and normally a selection of spices, and it is so delicious. We held off trying any until we reached the cost so it would be super fresh and I think it was worth it. No gluten risk so far.

Another big favourite of ours is yuca (or mandioca) which is abundant here, and great fried. Here you do need to check if there is any flour to make it crispy, or in the oil.

Piccarones, sweet potato donuts, are awesome, especially with the syrup that comes with them. Traditionally and properly made they are gluten free, but you need to check. We saw street stands in Lima that were selling ‘piccarones’ that were just regular donuts.

Mazamorras is a berry corn purple jelly thing that is served hot as street food with arroz con leche (rice pudding). Super sweet but really nice. If you see it you should definitely give it a try.

Another interesting street food is called anticuchos. This is normally a skewer of beef hearts, topped with a potato. Super good (I tried it not knowing what it was, but very very tasty).

Pollo broster, or chicharron de pollo, is fried chicken, like KFC actually, but almost always the flour is not wheat flour. A lovely Peruvian woman we stayed with told me mandioca flour is best, and in a restaurant they used chuño (potato flour). It was really good, dirty food.

There is giant white corn here that really nice, eaten from a lady on the street with a hunk of cheese. I don’t know why, just eat it.

Peruvian restaurants
Chifas are Chinese restaurants, or at least fusion Chinese Peruvian places. They are every where but largely you need to avoid them. The reason? I’m mean. No, not really. Sillao, as soy sauce is called here, is in pretty much every dish. Obviously you can enquire in the restaurant, as we did in Chiclayo and had fantastic safe food. But it is a rarity. Arroz chaufa is on most cheap restaurant menus, and is more or less egg fried rice, and again liberally doused in soy sauce. Ask to see the brand they use and check it yourself if you really want to try it. (The same goes for lomo saltado).

Pollerias are on every corner. They are roasted chicken shops. They are your answer to cheap safe food in Peru. Once you check there is no flour in the seasoning (never found any, but I like to always check to be safe), you’re all clear as they almost always only serve roasted chicken, rice and chips. I didn’t say it was healthy!

Individual restaurants I’ll cover separately, as there are a couple of stand outs that deserve the time.

Supermarkets and labeling
Pah! Pretty much no products for coeliacs unless you find the biggest supermarket in Lima. You can normally find rice noodles somewhere, due to the aforementioned chifas, but as your hostel is unlikely to have a kitchen you can only look at them in the packet!

There is nearly no awareness of gluten, so you really are on your own. The people however are really friendly and kind, so they may think you’re crazy, but they’ll help you, so always always ask.

Final advice: try every fruit you see and don’t recognise; they’re all good (even sancayo, the incredibly sour cactus fruit- go to Colca Canyon), go for the Easter for the special foods, if you really need a chocolate fix my go-to was ‘triangular’ but it’s cheap and nasty.

And that’s it. Come to Peru!

My non coeliac boyfriend

Does anyone else feel that there diagnosis has affected their relationship? I think it has ours, but in a good way. Which is a relief now I think about it.

Obviously there are downsides for him. The boyfriend now gets less say in where we eat, and the range of places we eat out is narrower. But on the upside we eat healthier food, and we put a lot more thought into what we eat.

Not to mention how thoughtful and considerate boyfriend is about the whole thing. Sometimes, I would get frustrated or annoyed and go crazy with some sweets or crisps that contain gluten if it wasn’t for his calm and consistent support. Also, we are travelling in some countries where there is so little awareness of coeliac disease and gluten intolerance that constantly explaining to people and seeing the ‘this girl is insane’ look gets really exhausting, if not demoralising. Having someone there with me who is on my side makes so much difference! Plus, he doesn’t drink beer either; we stand united!

That being said, and maybe I’m crazy, I do wonder if I get any gluten from him. While we are travelling he mops up all the free bread that comes with meals etc. and he loves oats for breakfast. I am considering if he himself could be a source of contamination when we kiss.

Either way, travelling with me, this disease affects him too, and he’s great about it. So thank you to him. AND to all the supportive boyfriends, girlfriends, spouses, families and friends that keep us happy and help us feel normal!

Is anyone else worried that gluten might spread from their lips to yours?

My gluten free struggle

As much as I try to eat healthy, satisfying and safe food there are times when I have to confess that the world doesn’t seem set up for coeliacs yet. One of those times has been the last few days.

In Bolivia, a series of stomach upsets (gluten caused or not, who knows?) meant that I retreated to the safest foods. By which I mean something in a packet with an allergen statement that did not  mention gluten. (Normally I would consider fresh homecooked food safest, but with no kitchen and no way of cleaning fresh fruit, this is second best). This also meant junk food.

As ashamed as I am to admit it, I existed for nearly three days on skittles, milky ways and nestle trencito (chocolate). I wasn’t happy about it, but I felt safe and it got me past the worst of my tummy troubles. It helps that I had little appetite anyway.

Of course there have been consequences. Cravings, majorly pissed off skin and guilt that I deprived my body of nutrients mainly.

This for me is the worst of travelling. I can’t whip up my own bone broth when I think I’ve been glutened, I don’t always know what will make me worse, and I don’t have any trusted place to eat out; everywhere is new, and a leap of faith. Sometimes it feels I have to make a choice between junk food and nothing. And, I’m a hungry person, I never choose nothing.

But I don’t want to do this to my body. So for the next month I’m going to be junk food free. I want to stop craving it, and stop using it as a safety net. Which means I’m going to have to find some other solutions, and fast!

If you have any ideas for easy replacement foods (preferably low sugar) please share them with me!

The Coca Shop- Peru

This shop in the heart of Cusco (https://foursquare.com/v/coca-shop/4e4afecc22713bd908b93699) specialises in products made with Coca leaves. Coca leaves are meant to have many medicinal benefits, but the main one trotted out is to counteract altitude sickness.

You can either stick a large quantity of leaves in your mouth and sort of mush them up for hours, or you can pop them in some hot water for tea (much nicer).

Now, thanks to the Coca Shop, you can also enjoy it in a variety of sweet ways.

The chocolate brownie is so so good. A bit unusual, but one of the best I’ve had for a while.

This cookie thing, called a kukota is also very nice, although to my mind chocolate always wins. Boyfriend raved about this and it has an interesting Coca taste.
Also available are a handy snack bag of biscuits and chocolates by the kilo.

The gluten free secret? The owner doesn’t like wheat flour and only uses corn!  Such a nice surprise.

Restaurant review La Paz

We ate out in La Paz a lot more than we would normally and there were two factors in that: price and a lack of kitchen. So many hostels are kitchenless in Bolivia, or so barely equipped as to be unusable, Tis a pity. Consequently it seemed worth summing up the highs and lows of dining.

Tierra Sana

A bad choice. The first place we went was a typical gringo style restaurant, by which I mean overpriced, no locals and odd menu. We had a morrocan style stew and Thai style curry. I added style both times as they only bore passing resemblance to those cuisines. They were both watery and ridiculously spicy. We were both very ill the next day.

Sol y Luna

This is another gringo haunt from the Four Corners area of La Paz. A Dutch/Asian/Bolivian place, (not fusion, fortunately), we found the Bolivian dishes poor and much more expensive than they should be. Very little in the way of catering for coeliacs but you can string a meal together and the setting is nice. Also, the WiFi works (this may or may not be the reason we dined here twice).

Kalakita’s

A small menu, there were two dishes based on corn nachos  and a couple of meat options that were suitable for me. My nacho craving was satisfied very well and the boyfriend seemed happy with the burrito. No one got sick.

Cafe del Mundo

Quite an interesting three floor cafe serving mainly all day western style breakfast. They also sell (but not make) gluten free quinoa cookies, by the box or individually. Service is a bit slow and random,  and you’ll have to fight for a seat unless you opt for a very very late lunch but I really enjoyed my first fry up in months.

Star of India

Nothing gluten free. This is what I was cheerfully informed as I was escorted out. It sounds like I’m damming them, but actually I was rather pleased at the waiter’s questions around my diet,  and subsequent discovery that all of their curries use stock cubes that contain wheat flour. He even brought them out to show me! Now I assume that if you’re with a group of friends desperate for a British style curry you can order some rice and maybe poppadoms from the side menu, but as I was alone and hungry I didn’t pursue this avenue of investigation.

Ayala (Bolivian)

Pique a lo macho (or just pique macho), chairo and chicharron are traditional Bolivian dishes we enjoyed here on various occasions. They don’t really do any vegetarian food, so this is a bit of an issue. Pique macho is a plate of chips, topped with egg, tomato, meat, sausage and onions; it is like chorrillana is Chile, just with a hard boiled egg. Chicharron is a huge amount of delicious pork, slow cooked and tender, served with giant white corn, a Bolivian specialty. Finally, chairo is a soup that is generally only served on Sundays, with meat, potato and herbs. The potato is a bit special; in La Paz you can see a lot of white rocks being sold in the vegetable markets, except they aren’t rocks, they are dehydrated potatoes. Once rehydrated, one of the many dishes they end up in is chairo. It’s an interesting taste.

The restaurant itself is not exactly atmospheric, while we were there once we watched an X men film as we ate, and the service is typically Bolivian; slow and trying. However, if you are in Bolivia you should do as the locals do. This is a great haunt, the food was delicious and the portions are huge.

Jalal restaurant (Lebanese)

I was hesitant to go to this very odd restaurant (it is just a room in someone’s house) as I was expecting to be able to eat very little. However boyfriend persisted so we went and I was very pleasantly surprised. After discussing food requirements with the waiter/chef I ordered hummus, falafel, aubergine in garlic sauce and chips to bulk things up a bit. The food was delicious and the stuffed vine leaf I pinched from boyfriend’s selection was also great. The next day however I was fairly certain I had been glutened, and the oil is my main suspect. I may be wrong but I believe my chips were contaminated. A disappointing conclusion to what was a good meal.

There may seem like a disproportionate amount of international restaurants here, not a terribly authentic dining experience I hear you thinking. But one thing and another mean that backpackers are often seeking bland, safe food in La Paz. If you are lucky and feel fine the whole time you are there, then make the most of it and eat as much as possible in the local’s restaurants! But unfortunately, you are one of the lucky few!

Gluten free Bolivian street food

So two weeks in Bolivia have been a mixed bag food wise. There are lots of delicious things, but there are also higher contamination risks- both gluten and normal. Still, with reasonable care you can eat very well.

Due to the patchiest Internet so far, I’m having a lot of trouble uploading posts. To combat this I’ve decided to do shorter posts, this first one focussing on street food.

This is going to be my first post with photos, so I apologise for the quality and guess you’ll understand why I haven’t included any until now. Hopefully things will be a bit more visually interesting at least.

I’ll start with my favourite, sonso.

Sonso is street food, a savoury snack cake thing made from yuca (cassava) and meat. The more traditional ones are yuca and cheese, which the boyfriend liked.The meat was described to me as beef jerky, but is different and much nicer. Also at only 5 Bolivianos (45p) it isn’t going to break the bank.

Api and tojori are two drinks made from corn and a whole lot of sugar. They cost around 2 or 3 Bolivianos, and are very filling for drinks. Locals may have one for breakfast or supper. Api can be made with purple or yellow corn, with slightly different flavours, and while you can ask to have them separately, the standard is to have a mix. Tojori is made from white corn and is much chunkier. It also has a strong anise flavour. If you ask ‘para llevar’, to takeaway, your drink is decanted into a plastic bag with a straw. For me this made it even more enjoyable.

Humintas are pretty much identical to humitas in the rest of South America; hot corn ground up and wrapped in the leaves. In Bolivia it is commonly mixed with cheese. A handy snack and on most street corners.

My ultimate go to snack were these peanut honey bars that all the street kioscos sell. They are between 1 and 2 Bolivianos, so really cheap, and a great snack that will keep in your bag without melting or freezing. Ingredients are just peanut and honey, simple and safe. I always kept a couple of these in my bag.

This is a bit of a bad habit, but I love pork crackling. All the salty, fatty goodness. There are stalls that just sell cones of pork crackling in La Paz, and it is delicious.

Finally, along the streets of La Paz there are many women preparing jelly and cream and others selling it in individual cups in the centre. Whilst I didn’t find a time to try this, I did see it being prepared and it looks gluten free to me!

And things to avoid:

Papas rellenos (stuffed potatoes) are a nibble I read about in The Lonely Planet and was looking forward to, but when I found a seller and enquired they are covered in flour before they are fried. A no-no, I’m afraid.

Similarly, the chocolate covered goodies, marshmallows and strawberries, that are sold in the evenings around San Francisco church aren’t going to do you any favours. As I mention in most posts, there is nearly zero gluten free chocolate so they are almost certainly not safe.

Gluten free tips for organised tours

I am not a really big fan of tours; anything where someone else is controlling my time and experience really gets me grouchy. However, the reality is that all around the world there are incredible sights that cannot be seen without signing up to a tour group. Not the majority, but some. Some could be done in a hire car or your own car, but our experience is that if public transport doesn’t go there, you will need a 4×4, and it’s normally prohibitively expensive on a backpacker budget. For these reasons we have done some tours. Half day tours, full day tours, but nothing overnight; that seems to be my limit.

Aside from the awfulness of being shunted around in a minibus (I know, sorry, some people like tours), for us, there is a food aspect to consider as well. So here are my tips:

1) Check what will be provided

Clarify with the company exactly what they provide, and what they expect you to bring. Sounds obvious, as many things do, but when it is the fifth company that you’ve spoken to (comparing prices, important!), your spanish is stretched to it’s limit and all you want to do is shower after a long journey, it is very easy to just pay and run away, only wondering later if you need food.

2) Request special food

Don’t be afraid of making a fuss, or having people stare at you like you grew a second head. If they are providing food, you have a right to be able to eat it. Not a legal right, but a moral one. (NB this rarely works-it’s a tour, it’s preset and they deviate for no man, woman or coeliac).

3) Pack enough to keep you going

My favourite personal rule- take more, not less. You can always bring leftovers back and it is awful being forced to watch others eat when you can’t. Even if you don’t want the food, you know you have an option.

4) Take a lot of water

Not much to do with being gluten free, but a valid point none the less.

5) Don’t pick around the gluten

Own up, come on. Who’s guilty of this. Wanting to join in, not wanting to cause offence, you casually nudge the bread rolls to the side to eat a bit of the salad they have contaminated. I know you’re hungry, I know it looks tasty, but if it’s not kept seperate from gluten it is poison. Walk away. Those crisps that they are serving as snacks whike you watch sunset with a pisco sour (real life example), do they have the packet? No? Then don’t touch them. Or go ahead, as I did, and feel awful later.

6) Try to get a discount

Why not? Nine times out of ten that food is included in a tour you will not be catered for and they will not offer any replacement. Haggling is the norm in many places anyway, so use this in your favour. At least you won’t end up out of pocket.

So these are my tips. Do you have any of your own? Let me know!

Being glutened; Five South American mishaps

I’ve been thinking about writing this post for a while, but having not left South America it felt premature. Having spent the best part of today feeling truly pants due to a very stealthy glutening (and without Internet- the horror) I realise that that was flawed logic. I should share my disasters as I go, maybe I can help someone else avoid the same fate!

So far these have been my big fat gluten mistakes:

Breakfast

I’m not completely daft; I’m aware that a bread heavy traditional South american feaUst won’t do me any favours. I come armed with rice crackers. It took me longer to start scrutinising the condiments as well. I thought that an untouched looking communal pot of jam was safe. It wasn’t until I worked in a hostel and saw the mother pot, in all its crumb filled glory that the penny dropped. No sharing with the gluten people! Unless you know that jam is from a fresh pot, steer clear.

Chocolate and sweets

I have a sweet tooth. I’m not ashamed of it. You’re probably already aware of it as, reading this, you are statistically my boyfriend or my mum. I am a bit ashamed that the last products I started examining the labels of closely were these delicious junk foods. Something in my subconscious couldn’t see a risk until it was explicitly pointed out. And, especially in South America I think, there are very few uncontaminated brands. I’d been digesting (or not) sneaky gluten in this manner for about two months of my travels, and gluten free life.

Local foods that you KNOW are safe

I didn’t actually make this mistake (yay) but it’s well worth mentioning. There is so much joy when you discover a naturally gluten free food. You see it, ask what it is and what’s in it, Google it to be sure, and then gobble it down whenever possible. This at least is my path, and there is no better example than the delicious milcaos from the island of Chiloe (you can see how much I loved them in a great blog post by my boyfriend here: http://www.englishmuffinandegg.wordpress.com). Milcaos are gluten free. Everyone knows this. Every recipe I’ve seen knows this. They’re just potato. Except when they’re not. Before I had a chance to find a recipe, but had already tried one trustingly at a friend’s, we found some on a stall. Not having verified by collective Internet wisdom their safety I quizzed the seller and found they did contain flour! This nearly put me off altogether but I persisted and that is the only flour containing milcao I’ve ever heard of. The lesson however is to always ask. Because if she had been the second, or fifth, or hundredth seller, I wouldn’t have asked and would have had a nasty shock. Now I ask each new stall, restaurant and cafe, because people do like to experiment and I want no surprises. At least not of that kind.

Thinking ‘just chicken’, means just chicken

It never does. Unless you specify, and then deal with the incredulous looks, the chicken will either come breaded or battered. The same is true of fried fish (always in batter ). Al horno is roasted, which is fine and obvious rotisserie place will also be ok.

Assuming a product will stay gf across borders

I didn’t even look at the wrappers of products I knew to be safe when I travelled on to new countries. It was only when bored on a bus and playing with a packet that I saw it had gluten in! Completely safe in ones country, poison in the next. Different factories I assume. Same rule as always, check first and e at later.

Foody walking tour in La Paz – gluten free travel heaven

Today brought a very special kind of treat. We have just returned from a three hour walking tour, sampling the best local gluten free food in Bolivia. I have not eaten so well since being diagnosed; it was amazing.

Our tour was with The Red Cap tour company (http://www.redcapwalkingtours.com). Here in La Paz they are best known for their free walking tours of the main sites in the city, and it was through doing this tour that we found out about the foody walking tour. Now I’ll say right away that it is not normally a gluten free tour, to be honest that would be a very strange thing to find. But I explained we really wanted to try the local cuisine, but I can’t eat gluten (and explained in detail all the things I couldn’t have) and boyfriend is vegetarian. The guide thought for a moment before saying this was no problem! The tour is only run on demand and, as such, it can be a bit bespoke.

I was nervous, but we met our guide at six and so commenced the most filling and delicious and interesting three hours. I had no need to worry, our requirements had been fully taken into account and we were the only people, so we had a fantastic private tour all for 200 Bolivianos each (around £17, including all the food).

As soon as we met Maya, out charming guide, we started to eat, in total stopping at five stalls or restaurants and trying well over twenty new foods including 2 full meals! I’m writing this now because I can’t move.

The beauty of the tour from a coeliac’s point of view is that you can find all the food you can safely eat, and there is a lot. Even though I would normally ask questions, there are some things I would assume are unsafe and walk straight past and Maya showed me what I’d been missing. Also, it felt like a treat to have someone else do all the research so I could just relax and enjoy the food (although I have to confess to googling some of the dishes- I just couldn’t believe I was so lucky to find all this naturally gluten free food!)

I don’t want to spoil the surprise of exactly what you taste (and I will do a separate post on Bolivia for coeliacs) but will say we tried lots of  quintessentially Bolivian food, starting at a food stall and ending in an English pub! (The chef is Bolivian and prepares dishes not on the menu especially, apparently she’s the best in La Paz, wasted cooking fish and chips all day). It was in the pub that I got to try peanut soup. This dish I will mention, as it was made specially for me. Usually, this soup has noodles in it, but for me they did it with rice. This was a highlight of the tour as it was only possible really because they were only cooking for us; usually in a restaurant it would be in a big batch with the noodles inextricably tangled up. I’d been wanting to try it and it was so good. One of the best things I’ve eaten in South America, for sure.

Everything else was delicious too, and not only that but we learned more about Bolivia as a country, its food and traditions, and I picked up some amazing and simple recipes.

We also got to get behind the bar and make our own singani sours (cocktails, rather like pisco sours but with Bolivia’s national spirit, singani) which we enjoyed as an aperitif before our two course meal, finishing the tour. We then waddled home.

It was an amazing experience, with the best food and a knowledgeable, local guide. I’m so happy we tried it and now I have lots more food that I can eat around La Paz. I believe I shall leave much fatter, yay!