Book Review: Deliciously G-Free

Book Title: Deliciously G-Free

Author: Elisabeth Hasselbeck

Date: 2012

Publisher: Ballantine

ISBN: 978-0-345-52938-1

Length: 267 pages

Illustrations: lots of color photos

Quote: "Excellent Enchiladas...My husband, Tim, gave this recipe its name--which tells you something about the deliciousness factor!"

This one's not a Book You Can Buy From Me, yet, because it's still a new book. For many gluten-intolerant people, it will even be worth the $30 new price. In this review I'll try to help readers decide whether they should rush out and plunk down thirty dollars today, or share a friend's or library copy.

First the obligatory grousing: What makes it possible for Elisabeth Hasselbeck to introduce a new gluten-free snack, the NoGii protein bars, to your supermarket, while Grandma Bonnie Peters' Veggie Burgers never reached your mainstream supermarket's freezer? Not the nutritional needs of actual gluten-intolerant people: most of us can get all the protein we need from non-grain sources, but most of the vegan "meat analogs" are gluten-based. No, it's money, all the way. GBP was merely a retiree who'd saved up a couple of hundred thousand dollars to invest...not enough for the greedhead protectionists of the American food industry these days. Hasselbeck is a TV star married to a retired football star. They can afford to launch a new food product.

Not that I am bitter. Not, in fact, that "the deliciousness factor" in Hasselbeck's recipes isn't high enough to make her book worth reading.

That's what some readers will love, and others won't love, about Deliciously G-Free...that focus on "deliciousness." As distinct from nutrition, or compliance with any other dietary guidelines. (The book begins with an obligatory disclaimer warning readers to consult a doctor or nutritionist.) There are a few vegan, dairy-free, sugar-free, etc., recipes in this book, and some that are easy to convert. You may not find enough new ones to justify the $30 price for a new copy. Then again, you might...depends on your diet protocol.

These recipes aren't cheap, either. Well, there are a few naturally gluten-free salads and blender drinks that are reasonably affordable when the ingredients are in season in your neighborhood. There are a lot of recipes that either assume that you've found packaged gluten-free breads, pastas, cereals, and cookies (some of which I've not seen in the supermarket yet), or assume that you've found, can afford, and can digest, the typical mix of two to five exotic "flours" for which gluten-free recipes are known. (For the record, at least two gluten-intolerant friends of mine don't digest tapioca, coconut, or xanthan gum much better than they do wheat.) If you're trying to feed five gluten-intolerant kids on one salary, take all those glossy pictures as a warning; this is not the book for you.

If you have been eating everything, if you're a typical New York restaurant "gourmet"-type foodie rather than a cook, these recipes are aimed directly to you. Tiramisu, sweet-and-sour stir-fries, tacos, chicken "fingers," lots of brownies and cookies, all the things you might miss being able to stop into your favorite eatery and buy, you can now make at home. Maybe even at the office. And, yes, people who are able to eat gluten just might prefer yours. And yours may be lower in saturated fats, simple carbs, and alcohol content. (Some of these recipes feature alcohol.)

If you want to take something that will impress friends to a grown-up party, this is the gluten-free cookbook for you. It's not hard for those who can buy the ingredients to achieve the glamorous-looking results in those pictures. And yes, those who can eat the results will probably agree that these pretty dishes taste as good as they look.

Should people who can eat wheat share gluten-free meals with those of us who can't? If they have an emotional attachment to the idea of eating from the same serving dish, there's no reason why they shouldn't. They can find enough wheat-based food elsewhere to keep their bodies producing the right enzymes. They can and should feel satisfied by an occasional gluten-free meal. If you use the Hasselbecks' recipes, they will.

If you use the Hasselbecks' recipes, especially during the first year you go gluten-free, you may have some further trouble. Each gluten-intolerant person is unique. Nearly all of us have been consuming enough gluten to have damaged our digestive systems, so until our bodies have time to rebuild themselves there may be all kinds of other things we can't digest. Most of these "allergies" or minor intolerances are temporary.

However, some Nordic types are intolerant of "tropical oils" and tropical fruits like coconut, pineapple, and bananas, and some people whose ancestors lived in the tropics have a mild intolerance of subarctic fruits like apples and pears. I chortled at the idea of using bananas that are "not too ripe" in order to prevent a dessert from looking "speckled." All of my ancestors came from subarctic parts of the world; I can't eat bananas that don't look speckled.

Other recipes in this book rely on cheese (often pricey cheese), eggs, meat, milk, tomatoes, cashews, chocolate, beans, coconut, tapioca, and other allergy triggers for their distinction and flavor, so if you have other food tolerance issues or share your meals with people who have different ones, you may need to count the recipes you'll be able to use before buying a copy of Deliciously G-Free.

If you want to open a gluten-free restaurant where gluten-intolerant people can bring their gluten-tolerant friends, this book can help you. And if you're a gluten-intolerant person who's recovered from most or all secondary food tolerance problems, your main question about this book will probably be which recipes to try first.