Twenty years ago it was difficult to follow any special diet
while dining out in Paris. Vegetarians were routinely served a trio of wilted
vegetables scavenged from the kitchen and a request for two entrées
(appetizers) instead of an entrée and a plat would raise eyebrows
and elicit snarky comments such as, Il y a toujours un(e) difficile,
There’s always a difficult one. Needless to say, substitutions required a
preliminary and extensive charm offensive.
For a variety of health reasons, the number of people avoiding
gluten is ever increasing. While bread and pastries are revered, French cuisine
is more than baguettes and pains au chocolat. Surprisingly, it
is not as difficult as you’d think to maintain a gluten-free diet in France.
Even before the businessman-friendly méthode Montignac burst onto the
Parisian restaurant scene in 1986, heralding the beginning of low-carb mania in
France, it was relatively easy to enjoy a traditional French meal sans
gluten.
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© www.irbms.com
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Begin a meal with a traditional plateaux de fruits de mer
(oyster and shellfish platter), a salade niçoise, or a salade
folle au foie gras. A ‘crazy’ salad almost always includes foie
gras and is often paired with gésiers, duck gizzards. The addition
of luxury items such as foie gras, homard, lobster, or langoustines
is what makes this salad crazy. For the main course, steak frites, magret
de canard or confit de canard (magret
and confit
are both made with the duck that provides the foie gras and has been
raised on a diet of corn).
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Chickpea
Flour Socca and Beer in Antibes
© 2013 Liam
Bang
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Half of the meals on the Marie Telling’s list of 44
Classic French meals you need to try before you die are unequivocally
gluten free, including classics such as Moules Marinières, steamed mussels, Hachis
Parmentier, shepherd’s pie with mashed potatoes, Steak Tartare, Pot
au Feu, a beef and vegetable soup/stew without thickeners, Poulet
Basquaise, chicken with tomatoes and peppers from the Basque region, and
Escargots,
garlicky snails. If you order Cassoulet, the signature duck and
bean stew of the Southwest, in a restaurant request it sans chapelure, without the
fine breadcrumbs that are traditionally scattered on top and grilled before
serving. Boeuf Bourguignon, Blanquette de Veau and Navarin
d’agneau, veal and lamb stews in cream sauce will have small amounts of
flour for the sauces. If you make these dishes at home, it’s easy to
substitute. You can even enjoy savory crêpes from Brittany, Galettes
Bretonnes, traditionally made with buckwheat flour. You can also request
that your sweet crêpe be made with a Galette Bretonne. Just make sure
that it’s made with 100% blé de Sarrasin or blé
noir.
Dessert is a bit more complicated, but classic flourless
French desserts fall into a few naturally gluten free categories.
Meringue-based - Ile flottante, floating islands; Macarons;
Mont
Blanc, chestnut cream and meringue; Nougat; Meringue
cookies.
Cream-based - Crème
caramel, flan with caramel sauce; Crème brûlée, creamy custard with a
burnt sugar topping; Fromage blanc, a fresh yogurt-like
cheese often served with a coulis de framboise, a raspberry purée;
les
glaces, ice creams including sundaes such as a Café Liégeois with
coffee ice cream, iced coffee and whipped cream.
Fruit-based – Delicious sorbets.
There are a
couple of cafés offering exclusively gluten-free pastries, pasta and even beer.
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Colorful
Boulangerie Meringues
© 2013 K-Rae
Nelson
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The Biosphère Café, is
located in the heart of the business district around boulevard Haussmann and is
a perfect spot for a gluten-free lunch. Reservations are recommended.
Biosphère Café, 47
rue de Laborde, 8th, M: Saint Augustin or Miromesnil, Monday-Friday, Noon-6 p.m.,
Saturday, Noon-10 p.m. Tel. 01 42 93 45 58.
Helmut Newcake, is just off the Canal
St. Martin, in a young and lively neighborhood. Daily lunch specials – salads,
soups, quiche, pizza, pasta and risottos – are under 10 €. The Sunday Parisian
brunch includes bread and jam, pancakes, smoked salmon and ham, salad,
scrambled eggs, coffee, tea and juice for 24 €. Gluten-free desserts include
lemon meringue pie, éclairs and cheesecake. There is also a small grocery store
where you can stock up on gluten-free bread, crackers, pasta and beer.
If you’re
here on a Sunday, you can also visit the gardens of the Saint Louis Hospital,
one block north (entrance at 40 rue Bichat or 1 ave Claude Vellefaux, open to
the public on Sundays from 11 a.m – 5 p.m.). The hospital was founded by Henri
IV at the very beginning of the seventeenth century. Located outside of the
city center at the time, victims of the plague and other contagious illnesses
were sent here.
Helmut
Newcake, 36 rue Bichat, 10th, M: Goncourt & République,
Monday-Saturday, Noon-7:30 p.m. Sunday, 10 a.m.-6 p.m. Tel. 09 82 59 00 39.
If you’re
looking for a natural foods store, you’re sure to run into a Naturalia. You can find freshly baked
gluten-free bread and pastries as well as a selection of pre-packaged
gluten-free bakery items at one of their approximately 40 shops in central
Paris.
