Atypical - not typical; not conforming to the type; irregular
So what exactly is not typical about these recipes?
Part of it is the formatting. I write recipes the way I like to read them. So the ingredients are first, then how much of each.
Part or it is the measurements. Almost everything is in weight. I greatly prefer using metric weights, but my mom prefers standard, so the recipes have both. If you're wondering about that almost, it's for stuff like eggs. Weighing out your egg to make sure it's exactly 50g is too obsessive for me.
Mostly, the atypical part is in what they don't have. There will be no corn, pork, wheat, rye, barley, or cheese in any of these recipes. If you think, "Wow, that's an oddly specific list," that's because I have oddly specific food restrictions.
Unfortunately, most of them contain corn.
Avoiding corn is hard. It is so hard. It's not a labeled allergen in the United States, so nobody has to mention if it's a hidden ingredient or if another ingredient was chemically derived from it. And so many things are derived from corn.
So what exactly is not typical about these recipes?
Part of it is the formatting. I write recipes the way I like to read them. So the ingredients are first, then how much of each.
Part or it is the measurements. Almost everything is in weight. I greatly prefer using metric weights, but my mom prefers standard, so the recipes have both. If you're wondering about that almost, it's for stuff like eggs. Weighing out your egg to make sure it's exactly 50g is too obsessive for me.
Mostly, the atypical part is in what they don't have. There will be no corn, pork, wheat, rye, barley, or cheese in any of these recipes. If you think, "Wow, that's an oddly specific list," that's because I have oddly specific food restrictions.
- I am allergic to corn and pork. Like feel ill for days even after taking Benadryl and can't even be in the room while they're cooking or my lungs start spasming allergic. Not anaphylaxis so far, which is nice.
- I have Celiac's disease, which means if even a single molecule of gluten from wheat, rye, or barley lands in my small intestine, my immune system flips out and starts eating holes everywhere it touched. This is very painful and I do not like it.
- I have an incomplete rotation of the bowel, which means my intestines are not arranged the way you see in anatomy models. They're also not properly anchored to the interior of my body, so they can move about if provoked. Cheese provokes them. My gastroenterologist told me in high school that eating cheese could cause my intestines to strangulate which would lead to severe internal bleeding and death without emergency surgery. I am opposed to that. It does not sound fun. So I don't eat cheese in any form.
Unfortunately, most of them contain corn.
Avoiding corn is hard. It is so hard. It's not a labeled allergen in the United States, so nobody has to mention if it's a hidden ingredient or if another ingredient was chemically derived from it. And so many things are derived from corn.
For example, dextrose can be made out of potatoes, rice, corn, or wheat. Corn is usually cheapest so that's what they use most of the time. Dextrose is used in iodized salt to keep the iodine from chemically reacting. So, no regular table salt for me. Many other additives are produced this way. Even if you contact the companies that made the product, they don't know what their supplier made it out of. Or which supplier provided the ingredients that went into the batch you need to know about.
And you may think, "Surely that's not enough to make somebody sick!" But it adds up. A constant exposure to small amounts leads to chronic and underlying problems. It also makes the threshold for going into a severe reaction when there is a significant exposure much lower.
All of these recipes were written in self defense. I needed to eat food that would not kill me. It also needed to taste good enough that my family would eat it and the whole house could be allergen free. Then I wanted to type them up so they would be easier to read. At that point, it seemed obvious that I should post them so that other people with similar issues could use them too. And this is the result.