Gluten-free Goodies

FoodService Director - What I Learned - Robert Landolphi - UConn

“When my wife was diagnosed with celiac disease, I knew we were going to have to make some changes in our house to live a gluten-free lifestyle. I graduated from Johnson and Wales, but we didn’t have gluten-free culinary classes back in the ‘90s. This was like starting all over again and thinking about what you can substitute that’s going to give you that same texture and flavor, especially when you start playing with these gluten-free flours, because they act completely different than your typical wheat flour. Depending on which gluten-free flour you use, some of them have a very bland taste similar to wheat flour, but some of them have a stronger flavor, especially bean flours. So you use a lot of seasonings, spices, sugars and sweeteners to mask the aftertaste. Blending the flours is important. Flour that is great for a cake is not going to be the same as for a breadstick.

So I just started playing and creating different recipes. I started to come up with some really great dishes and the next thing I knew, one or two people who had the disease asked for my recipes. That led to people asking me to do cooking demonstrations and classes at Whole Foods or Wild Oats. My wife told me to consider putting it all in a book because it would really benefit people with celiac disease who have no idea where to turn. So I looked at all the recipes I had and it turned out I had more than 100. I started to go through and categorize them and suddenly I had a book.

The recipes in the book are pretty much ones I had already come up with, but there were some that I got in there at the last minute. For example, during one of my cooking demos I was challenged to make a satisfying gluten-free onion ring.

When I came to work at UConn was when my wife was diagnosed. At that time, we had two or three students come forward and say they had the disease. I knew enough about it at the time that I could help them make their way through the dining hall. Now we have more than 60 students that have celiac disease. Our director gave us the green light to be proactive because he realized it is something we were going to deal with. We label all food that contains gluten. We made major changes for a lot of the ingredients we use. We switched soy sauce and made sure all cold cuts were gluten free. We also have a freezer in our halls that holds gluten-free breads, bagels, wraps, cookies and pastas.

My wife is diagnosed with celiac disease, not me; so I would ask people ‘what can I make that would make your life easier?’ People would ask things like a way to thicken clam chowder without using a roux, or somebody would ask about lasagna—what are the good gluten-free pastas out there? So I’d experimented with the gluten-free pastas that are on the market. I realized as I started doing these demos that there are people who think they’ll never be able to eat anything good again. I want to say to them that that is not true.

I think one of the biggest things we learned was we asked ourselves how much can we do in the dining hall and what can’t we do? One of the things was that our bakery on campus wouldn’t be able to bake gluten-free items because of cross-contamination issues. We decided to bring in all the gluten-free baked items individually wrapped. In terms of the menu, we asked ourselves what was in the dish that was making it not gluten-free? Then we looked at where we could substitute ingredients and we began to create a lot of dishes that were very inclusive. It was easier than bringing in gluten-free meals that needed to be microwaved. We had the skill and talent so we wanted to figure out ways to cook gluten-free meals. We even tell the students that if they don’t see a choice on the line that they’re in the mood for, we’ll cook you a gluten-free meal— if you don’t mind waiting a few minutes.”