I’m off to Taiwan in two weeks for a month, and I’m wondering if I will have any trouble with the local food. I have a wheat allergy, and would like to know what sort of flour the Taiwanese mainly use as a base for their sauces and batter etc. Do they also use a lot of Soy sauce?
Any other tips for food in general are also welcome: i.e what is recommended to try, what to avoid. I have heard that Taiwan is a culinary delight, so I’m very excited, but also anxious that my stomach will hold up!
flour base for sauces: AFAIK (wheat) flour-based sauces aren’t a significant part of Chinese cooking. I don’t see a lot of stuff like Bechamel or brown gravy, etc., although you’ll see a few of the breaded, fried pork or chicken steaks served with a brown gravy that might be (most are not served with gravy but a few places, often Japanese-influenced, do add this). Most Chinese (e.g., Cantonese) sauces are thickened with corn starch, not flour.
You are probably already well aware of the difference between rice-based and flour-based noodles. The steamed buns, noodles and rolls from northern cooking are wheat flour based, of course. I strongly suspect a lot of the vegetarian items (fake meat etc.) contain wheat flour. I think the various dumplings (pot stickers, shui3jiao3, etc. also have wheat flour in the wrappers, which are then also dusted in flour.
batters: I’d assume they are mostly wheat flour based, just to be safe. Not sure, though.
soy sauce: yes, they use a lot
Sounds like you’ll want to learn how to communicate with the cooks to be safe. Do you have any Chinese language ability under your belt yet? Are you interested?
Feel free to ask how to say things like “I’m allergic to wheat flour”, “Does it contain any wheat flour?” and “please don’t use any soy sauce” – you can visit our Learning Chinese forum to ask such questions.
The fake meat and a lot of ‘vegetarian’ stuff is made with extracted gluten … some might be soy based … the corn chowder (corn cream soup) you can eat in many places are flour thickened … I even think there is some wheat based tea around or at least some kind of grain based …
And yes, there is a lot of soy sauce in the food preparations and MSG …
Are you sensitive or do you have Celiac disease? The following information is for one with Celiac disease, so it’s more extreme. If you are just sensitive or have minor allergies and can stomach (mind the pun) “accidentally” consuming wheat, then you do just what you’re comfortable with.
In Taiwan when dining out:
Avoid soy sauce. Avoid any sauce that’s not clear or white or runny. Bring your own.
Avoid anything with mayonnaise.
Avoid thick soups.
Avoid any sauce drizzled on your rice at street stalls.
You can prolly have those fish balls on a stick, but I would err on the side of caution and say don’t, as the vendors don’t know if flour is used as a filler, but I’m sure they do.
You can basically eat sauteed vegies in garlic and that’s about it. I never realized how much Taiwanese cooking depended on soy sauce to make it cheap and accessible.
Soy sauce uses wheat as a filler. You can buy a bottle of San-J gluten-free soy sauce at Jason’s @ 101. Jason’s 101 has a whole shelf of gluten-free items.
Learn to love rice or corn cakes with PB&J while in Taiwan!
Many eateries use white flour to thicken soups and sauces because they are cheaper than corn starch. However, if you want to take your chance then you can ask the eateries what they use to thicken/darken their sauces.
Only higher end restos promised us to cook our food in separate pots and pans to avoid cross-contamination.
I’m back on the avoidance saddle myself again. I suspect strong gluten sensitivity in me as I get rashes, poor bathroom movements, fuzzy headed, moody, etc. Have been blatantly cheating lately first with Alley cat’s Pizzas, then with Subway. Cravings are Killing me.
Jason’s in Banchiao has almost removed their gluten free stuff from the shelves. There are some rice and corn crackers, and sauces that I can eat, but they just don’t have the gluten free flour rice pasta, and pancake stuff that they did before. How is it City Center and Jason’s 101?
I’m relearning how to make cornbread without wheat flour and having mixed results. I just wanna be able to have a goddamn sandwich sometimes, ya know?
They put the gluten-free pasta in the section of discounted goods about to reach their due-date. I bought two 250 g packages for a total of NT$69 or so the other day. But they might be out by now.
If you think you might be wheat sensitive rather than gluten intolerant per se, you could also try baking 100% rye bread, I’ve got a recipe and some books discussing technique. It’ll be a difficult, sticky dough to work with and will require special mixing, handling and rising. The result will be very dense. But it will be wheat-free, and low-gluten (not gluten-free). I also have a reasonably priced source for the flour. Just start a new thread in Food if you’re interested and I’ll post the info there.
You can also try making flatbreads from chickpeas, for doing wraps or something.
Hi, my mum’s coming to visit this week, and it turns out she has this Coeliac disease, so needs to eat gluten-free.
I think I’ve read up on most of the things she can’t eat, but I just wanted to check here. Rice noodles (mifen), and bean noodles (dongfen) should be alright, yeah?
What I’m really wondering about is the communication. I know that in Western countries, if you asked “is this food gluten-free?” most people wouldn’t be able to tell you. But still, if I can tell people that my mum can’t eat it, they should be able to realise why I’m asking all these questions, about the food. My wife says the best way to say it would just be 麵粉類的東西 (mianfen lei de dongxi). Does anyone have any experience of this?