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Hi

I was just wondering if anyone has any experience of gluten free food while camping in France. My son has coeliac's and I am a little nervous of how I will cope getting him GF food while away. I will of course be taking his bread, won't be able to take his cake mix as obviously no oven! I can get frozen GF fish fingers and chicken etc but agan due to not having a freezer this will not be an option.

Any suggestions would be great!

You can get some gluten free foods from the large hypermarkets in France.  I've seen a variety of products available, and the labelling appears to be the same as in this country - but I haven't actually taken much notice.

Can you not take some gluten free breadcrumbs, and make your own fish fingers from the delicious fish you can buy in France?  A little fish will make a lot of fingers, same with chicken nuggets - make your own from a chicken breast fillet.

I have been really impressed at the French versions of 'free from' ranges at the main supermarkets - certainly 'Intermarche' had a good selection. Make sure you know the french translations of ingredients that contain gluten so you can check the regular foods as well.

Failing that much of French food consists of fresh ingredients - barbecuing etc should give you some scope for plain fish/meat etc. to be cooked. Buy plain mice and make your own burgers.

hi Val,

thanks for the reply, I do now make breaded fish and chicken, but always finish them in the oven for cooking, I'll definately try tho! I am very Lucky that he loves fish!

What you need to remember if in a restaurant is  to ask for FARINE FREE .  The French are slightly more clued up to people with coeliac disease than in England.

We were in a restaurant in St Omer with my daughters mother in law who is coeliac and asked for gluten free and they asked if she was coeliac.  In England many times we have asked for gluten free and they have asked us why??

I agree with the above, french supermarkets are usually better than ours, i would take a translation of 'coeliac' and 'gluten free' with me.

Can I be cheeky and also mention that we run a baking website that has a few gluten free baking products the site is http://www.kitchenfoods.co.uk it maybe worth a look.

Glad to hear France is up to speed with Gluten Free, I agree with the comments about the UK some eateries have not got a grasp on what this means or I end up having to pay for an adults meal.

Had a look at the baking website cheers for that, I tend to do a lot of baking and cooking myself. SLowly my son is getting to like more and more, when we went to France 2 yrs ago he was on a Gluten challenge, which meant he could eat wheat to see how he reacted, consquently he loved the bagettes and donuts etc. I hope he doesn't remember too much of the finer culinary delights of France.

Hi Dawnie,

Not really any experiance myself but my brothers wife and son have the same problem and travel a lot especially France. He cooks loads for them anyway so just converts his normal meals to his cadac.

He also made up and laminated some little cards explaining the condition and asking them to recommend something from the menu or help them check the lables in supermarkets etc.

He has never had a problem, if you make the effort to speak even a few basic words and then show them the cards most people are only to happy to help.

Good luck

Cheers Liz, those sites are great brilliant idea about laminating some cards also!

put my mind at ease a little!

Thanks guys

We travel to Europe quite frequently and wouldn't go without our dietary cards, see link below

http://www.dietarycard.com/

This page from the Coeliac UK web is also invaluable for France

http://www.coeliac.org.uk/documents/france_feature.pdf

Quote: Originally posted by B Chrystie on 07/6/2009

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Buy plain mice and make your own burgers.

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Quote: Originally posted by Feux Verts on 07/6/2009

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Quote: Originally posted by B Chrystie on 07/6/2009

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Buy plain mice and make your own burgers.

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Yes I have just re-read my post and realised my 'typo'!! Still gluten-free tho!!

You'll need a lot of mice to make 1 burger.

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