The Gluten-Free Revolution: Absolutely Everything You Need to Know about Losing the Wheat, Reclaiming Your Health, and Eating Happily Ever After by Jax Peters Lowell

The Gluten-Free Revolution: Absolutely Everything You Need to Know about Losing the Wheat, Reclaiming Your Health, and Eating Happily Ever After by Jax Peters Lowell

Author:Jax Peters Lowell [Lowell, Jax Peters]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 9780805099546
Publisher: Henry Holt and Co.
Published: 2015-02-02T22:00:00+00:00


14

Sprechen Sie Gluten?

You are invited to take advantage of the chambermaid.

—SIGN IN JAPANESE HOTEL ROOM

* * *

  Gluten-Intolerance Dining Cards for Travel

English

Arabic

Chinese

Croatian

Czech

Danish

Dutch

French

German

Greek

Hebrew

Hindi

Italian

Japanese

Korean

Polish

Portuguese

Russian

Spanish

Swahili

Swedish

Thai

Vietnamese

* * *

Ladies requested not to have children in the bar. Please leave your values at the front desk.

We’ve all had a good laugh at signs like these in foreign hotels attempting to translate for their English-speaking guests. Something crucial is lost in translation and the meaning changes, often hilariously so. Funny, yes. But the last thing you want to get lost is a serious request for a gluten-free meal.

If you travel often for business or pleasure, becoming familiar with the many foreign menu terms in Chapter 13 will go a long way in choosing what and where to eat while abroad. Still, the waiter may not speak your language, and that is especially true if you are traveling to far-flung places away from world capitals. If you’re like me, your language skills may be too wobbly to get your needs across.

You can always stay home, but how boring is that?

The world is much friendlier to the gluten-free diet than when I penned the first gluten intolerance card, which said in terrible French, If I have any farine, I’ll have a disease in my chair. I had no idea I was launching a cottage industry or that I would end up putting much better versions in Against the Grain. I just knew I wanted to go to Paris, gluten-free or not, and I did not trust my French to get myself anything more than a room and a bar of soap.

Living fully and well should not be dictated by diet or syntax.

The dining cards you will find here are a far cry from my quaint early attempts. They are professionally translated from English into twenty-two languages—Arabic, Chinese, Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, French, German, Greek, Hebrew, Hindi, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, Swahili, Swedish, Thai, and Vietnamese.

Be aware, these cards are as good as the fluency of your waiter in his or her own language. They will not help in remote places where many people cannot read or write. Nor will they prevent lewd practical jokes, as one Westchester tour group discovered at the hands of some frisky Greek island fisherman. That is entirely out of my hands or those of the translator.

Remember these cards are not just for traveling and will also go a long way toward understanding at the ethnic restaurant where the owners are still a bit shaky in English. At home or abroad, most people want to help and appreciate it when you try to communicate in their language, even if it’s only on paper.



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