A handful of years ago now, I realized that something was amiss with my gastrointestinal tract. Namely, it had stopped being willing to deal with dairy products. I assumed that the commonplace thing had happened and that I had somehow managed, despite a lifelong adoration of all things cheesey and ice-creamy, to become intolerant of lactose, the sugar found in milk.
Realizing that preaching tolerance is about as effective in regard to one’s internal organs as it is in regard to Klansmen, I stocked up on lactase enzyme tablets. Surely they would allow me to resume my regularly scheduled program of manchego, St. Marcellin, Maytag blue, mozzarella di bufala, halloumi, and all their friends and relatives. Alas, this was not to be. I tried, I really did. I tried hard. Even in light of ample, even vomitous evidence that the damn lactase tablets weren’t doing a damned thing, I kept trying, so loath was I to lose my ability to enjoy all the milk products I had always loved.
For about a year, I experimented as much as I could stand to with continuing to eat dairy products. It was, in hindsight, pretty miserable. But I did it for two reasons. First, I was trying to figure out what it was to which I was reacting, which was pretty clearly not lactose, since I had the same reactions when eating low-lactose dairy foods like aged cheeses as I did when eating high-lactose ones like custard, and in either case the lactase enzyme pills didn’t help. Second, I was culinarily desperate. Dairy products occupy such a whopping niche in Western cookery, from the handful of grated parmesan sprinkled over pasta or the few tablespoons of milk used to get proper consistency in a buttercream frosting all the way to the yogurts, sauces, puddings, custards, quiches, and grilled cheese sandwiches which, without dairy, simply would not exist. I wanted not to be allergic to dairy because I liked to eat it, sure. But I also wanted not to be allergic to dairy because frankly, from the perspective of negotiating the kinds of dishes that form the center of most people’s (and most restaurants’!) culinary repertoires, not being able to use dairy products was a little bit like being asked to hang wallpaper with one hand tied behind your back.
I had had some experience with non-dairy cooking, as it happened. During my vegetarian years, I spent a portion of that time either partially or wholly vegan, mostly out of a misbegotten assumption that veganism would make me ascetically thin. (This theory, I must note, was straight out of a diet book my parents had when I was growing up, the rather whackadoo Did You Ever See A Fat Squirrel? by one Ruth Adams. It had yet to dawn on me that unless they’re fried in animal fat, French fries are completely vegan, ditto every fruit pie known to womankind if the crust is made with vegetable shortening rather than butter… etc. It had also yet to dawn on me that not only had I seen no shortage of fat squirrels, especially ’round about Octoberish, but that there was actually no very good reason that a whole foods diet would necessarily make anyone thinner in any case. But I digress.) I was not precisely terrified of the prospect of dairy-free cooking, since I knew full well I could do it and enjoy it, but I was afraid of losing so many options.
In particular I was afraid that if I couldn’t eat any dairy products at all, I would be virtually unable to eat in restaurants, or eat any prepared foods. Dairy products are used in a lot of foods where you wouldn’t expect to find them, after all, or where they haven’t got a starring role and so one doesn’t always think to recall that they’re there: the butter used in the pan to saute the mushrooms for an omelette, for instance, or the whey protein used to improve the texture of a sausage, or the tiny quantity of grated cheese in an Italian-style vinaigrette salad dressing. If I were truly allergic to all dairy, I’d have to at the very least be suspicious of virtually every prepared food that crossed my path, read labels obsessively, and eschew lots of things I would otherwise enjoy.
As it turns out, that’s what I have to do. As my intrepid experimentation, done at the cost of not a few days and nights spent deepening my appreciation of that modern miracle known as the flush toilet, ultimately proved out, the allergy that I had developed was not to lactose at all, but to casein, the protein found in milk. Furthermore, it rapidly became apparent that not only was I allergic to the form of the casein molecule found in cow’s milk, but also, if somewhat less so, to its analogues in sheep’s milk and goat’s milk and, hélas! even water buffalo’s milk. Even a small quantity of the stuff introduced to my system impels my body to propel it right back out again posthaste via whatever portal seems quickest.
Addio, mozzarella di bufala! Khairete, halloumi! Adiós, manchego! Auf wiedersehen, Emmenthaler! Hang loose, Ben & Jerry! Ou sont les fromages d’antan?
Interestingly, this doesn’t mean that all dairy products are out of the picture for me. Just almost all of them. Clarified butter, also known to the world of Indian cooking as ghee, doesn’t bother me because it has had its milk solids (proteins) removed. Butterfat on its own poses me no problem. Similarly, I can tolerate small quantities of heavy cream or high-quality butter, as long as I don’t try to eat too much or too often. They’re mostly butterfat, with very little protein, so it’s something I can negotiate within certain parameters.
But that’s it. For about four years now, that’s been the extent of my dairy-eating capability. For those of you who eat dairy, think about this seriously: it changes your entire cooking and eating life.
No dairy means, among other things, no pizza, unless you make a cheeseless one yourself, or are lucky enough to find a pizzeria that offers vegan “cheese,” which by the way does not so much melt as simply give up hope, and which in any event is impossible to confuse with actual cheese. It means virtually never being able to order so much as a salad in a restaurant without interrogating your server as to the presence or absence of cheesey comestibles hiding amongst the verdure, and rarely having restaurant salad dressing options beyond oil and vinegar because there are too many “vinaigrettes” that hide a stealthy payload of cheese. You can’t even order a hamburger without worry, because while the burger itself may not be problematic, you never know whether the bun it’s served on contains some form of the Evil Cowjuice (and many do). You give up most Italian food unless you cook it at home, and all Italian restaurants. Ditto for Indian (all that yogurt and paneer). And French (butter, cream, cream, cream, cream, and cheese). And Eastern European or Russian (cheese and sour cream). And Tex-Mex (see above). And Mexican (again). And even good old-fashioned American diners are off the list, because good old-fashioned American food is pretty much a juggernaut of dairy products from start to finish. With care and a sympathetic server, admittedly, you can work around the menus in many places, but your risks of poisoning by stealth dairy are still high. The allure of east Asian restaurants becomes magnified out of all proportion, simply because when you are eating in a cuisine that has no tradition of using dairy products, you can order a meal — anything you want! off the whole entire menu! unthinkable! — without having to wonder whether you’re going to spend all night breaking the land speed record for the 20-yard dash to the loo.
And that’s not all. Luncheon meats and sausages must be carefully label-checked if you cannot consult directly with the person(s) who made them, since whey protein and sodium or calcium caseinate are both popular additives to these products, so forget about ordering that deli sandwich even if you’re sure the bread won’t bite back. While you’re at the deli, you can also forget about ordering any of those salads with the creamy mayonnaisey dressings, since in some cases they also toss in a bit of sour cream. Commercial bakeries are generally no longer places you can patronize, either, although I have discovered that some of the really old-school working class bakeries are reasonably safe because they can’t afford to use butter and so use the cheaper vegetable shortening. Kosher pareve bakeries are an even better bet, since kosher law mandates that pareve foods contain neither meat nor dairy.
While we’re at it, bear in mind that you can now forget about sharing the goodies your co-workers bring in to the office at the holidays, or enjoying a piece of cake at your niece’s birthday party (even without the ice cream it is likely to contain milk and/or butter), or noshing on wine and cheese… or even chips and dip for the most part… at a party. To make socializing even more awkward, every dinner party invitation you accept must now be accepted with an accompanying demand on your host or hostess that the meal be prepared not according to the whims of the cook, but to the dictates of your despotic digestive system. You should also bear in mind that not everyone will believe you that you’re really allergic to what you say you’re allergic to, and that some self-anointed experts will, in addition to supplying you with a more than ample supply of dubious advice about how their sister’s brother-in-law’s wife’s manicurist’s daughter’s pediatrician said such-and-so would cure food sensitivities “and she did it and it worked just like that,” also encourage, nay, insist, that you “just have a little bit” because clearly, this “food allergy” of yours is something you have invented in order to be a Delicate And Unique Snowflake™ and is not a real condition at all.
But I digress.
The point is, it is difficult not to be able to eat things that the vast majority of people in your culture can happily eat. Not impossible, surely, but difficult. Which means that learning how to adapt my cooking and eating to my inability to eat dairy products has been a highly educational process. (It also accounts, in part, for my enthusiasm for Chinese cookery.)
In future weeks, I’m planning to talk more about this here, and to share some of the better recipes that I have come up with for dairy-free foods that fill niches I once thought unfillable without the use of some kind of dairy product: a creamy salad dressing, a pasta dish with a richly creamy sauce, a “buttermilk” dark chocolate cake, even a popcorn topping that tastes (no lie) like it has Parmesan cheese in it, and so on. These aren’t necessarily vegan recipes (some use eggs, meat broths, etc.) but they can all be made vegan if needed or desired. What they are, not to put too fine a point on it, are recipes that help people like me who are passionate cooks and enthusiastic diners cope with a humdinger of a dietary limitation.
They are also delicious.
And maybe, just maybe, they’ll help some other folks out there who, like me, have found that they can no longer eat dairy foods. Or the host/esses who suddenly find themselves confronted with needing to cook for us.
