Tips for Celiacs – Travel in the United Kingdom
Medieval castles where kings and their courts created both history and legend lured me. Stories of the Neolithic village Skara Brae, buried for 4,000 years until disinterred by a wild storm in the Orkney Islands, piqued my imagination. Mental images of sheep grazing peacefully among rings of standing stone monuments left mysteriously by prehistoric people tantalized me. The historic scenes of England and Scotland called to me, and I eagerly anticipated a two-week adventure there with my husband and son.
A few friends asked if I were concerned about trying to maintain a gluten-free diet in a foreign country, but I was not worried. From past experience, I knew it would take some planning before the trip and a bit of extra effort while I was away from home, but celiac disease would not keep me from traveling.
My advance preparations for a gluten free trip consisted of making sure that I would have gluten-free meals on all my flights, inquiring about gluten-free food at the bed and breakfast (B&B) where we made reservations, printing out several celiac restaurant cards to take with me, and deciding what food I should tote along.
When we purchased our airline tickets for the trip, we requested gluten-free meals for me on all flights. Even so, when I called the airlines a few days before our departure and asked the agent to confirm that my meals would be gluten free, she found no record of my earlier request. Fortunately, there was still time for the agent to add the request to our reservations, but the oversight served as a warning that I should be prepared with food in case of further mishaps.
We planned to stay in bed and breakfasts while we were in the United Kingdom, but so that we could be flexible in our schedule, my husband made advance reservations only for the last three nights of our stay, which we planned to spend in London. Via e-mail, he contacted the B&B hostess and asked if she could accommodate my gluten-free diet. She was unfamiliar with the diet, but she said that if we sent her my requirements, she would be happy to prepare foods I could eat. We e-mailed her a celiac restaurant card, (http://www.alamoceliac.org/acrestaurantcard.html), and I printed several cards to take with me.
All that remained was to choose what foods to take with me. In recognition of the fact that celiac disease is more widely recognized in the United Kingdom than it is here in the US, I took nothing more than rice cakes, cereal, and energy bars for use while I was in the UK, but I also packed along a lunch and snacks for the flight. Happily, the airline did have gluten-free meals prepared for my flight to England, and our vacation was off to a good start.
While I was in England and Scotland, I had many pleasant dining experiences. For evening meals, we usually ate in pubs. On more than one occasion, I was pleasantly surprised to find a pub owner who was not only familiar with celiac disease but who could also point out exactly which dinners on his menu I could eat. On several evenings, we ate at Indian restaurants. Much of Indian cuisine is naturally free of gluten-bearing ingredients, and there were usually several menu items from which I could safely choose. I quickly learned to phrase menu inquiries using the expression “celiac diet” (spelled “coeliac” there but pronounced as “celiac”) rather than “gluten-free,” as the former is more commonly used in the UK.
Our midday meals typically consisted of cheese, fresh produce, and bread or crackers that we bought in grocery stores and ate as picnic lunches. I was thrilled to discover that the grocery stores in the Tesco chain and the Sainsbury's chain had small sections devoted to gluten-free foods. There was such a variety of crackers, cookies, and cereals that were all new to me that I almost found it difficult to choose which to buy. Furthermore, some Sainsbury's grocery stores had small restaurants in them, as some of our H-E-B stores have, and all the menu items were listed in a notebook and labeled as safe or unsafe for celiacs. We ate one meal in a Sainsbury's restaurant. Even small independent grocery stores that I investigated had a few gluten-free items.
As pleasant as my other eating experiences were, breakfast was the highlight of every day. Most bed and breakfasts offer “full English breakfast” with eggs, bacon, sausage, grilled tomatoes, sautéed mushrooms, baked beans, toast, and tea or coffee as its major components. Some B&Bs also add fresh fruit, yogurt and cereals. After a discussion with our first B&B hostess, I determined that sausage and baked beans were risky, and I omitted them throughout the trip. “Bacon” was thinly sliced ham, more like what we would call “Canadian bacon,” and I considered it safe. Toast was out of the question, or so I thought. However, in one of the B&Bs where we stayed, we were amazed to find out that the hostess stocked gluten-free bread and muesli because she had a regular visitor who was a celiac. The hostess of another B&B astonished us by presenting me with gluten-free “biscuits” (We would call them “cookies.”) for my tea and gluten-free toast with my breakfast because she kept those things “for [her] friend Pauline.” At our final B&B, the only place where we had made advance reservations, our hostess had gluten-free biscuits waiting for me when I arrived, and she supplied gluten-free yogurt and rice cakes to accompany my breakfast. Such thoughtfulness made our stay in these places very special.
Though there were a few occasions when my only choice for dinner was a chef's salad, most of my eating experiences in England and Scotland were quite agreeable. I was able to fulfill my desire to venture to sites of history and lore, and I also found a few pleasant little gastronomic surprises along the way.
