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Illustration by Alex Siklos
My family jostles into position around the large teak dining room table at our parent’s home, squeezing in to make room for the dozen of us.
On these special occasions, the table is laid with heirlooms such as the handmade bread basket loosely lined with a white tea towel with an embroidered monogram, deep red handmade glassware from the Reijmyre factory, and elegantly sleek Swedish serving dishes that were wedding gifts to my parents more than 50 years ago. Each piece evokes coolness and calm.
Looking around the table, I take in the comforting and familiar display of our family, ranging in age from 18 to 85, and the Scandinavian genes that tie us together.
Even though we are grown adults, our family mealtimes are still punctuated by the rituals we learned as children, including the host’s awaited proclamation of “Varsagod!” meaning “please, help yourself,” and the polite way to leave the table: “Tak for maten.” It is our special way of connecting to each other and to our food.
Ten years ago, my comfortable relationship with family mealtime was severed when I was diagnosed with celiac disease, the often-inherited auto-immune condition that causes the body to attack itself when gluten is eaten. I could no longer enjoy my mother’s cardamom buns and the delicate saffron buns that are topped with a raisin at each knot, which I always pinched out to eat first. Now I just add cardamom to my morning tea to evoke that feeling of nostalgia.
I would never look at family mealtime the same way again.
The celiac gene, I later learned, came from my Swedish mother’s side of the family, and her sister was diagnosed with celiac disease many years ago. My own diagnosis though, caught me completely by surprise, as I am one of the 20 per cent of celiacs who are asymptomatic, at least on the outside. Before my diagnosis, I had no idea of the damage gluten was doing to my small intestine since I had none of the usual gastrointestinal symptoms.
The GI doctor who gave me the final diagnosis merely handed me some brochures and dismissed me curtly. “You must eat completely gluten-free from now on, even if you think you feel okay eating gluten. Don’t cheat. Ever.”
I would have no immediate reward or relief for following a gluten-free diet and I can’t honestly say that I feel better on this diet but I do not want more serious health issues down the road. Living with the disease, however, has changed my relationships to food, to my friends and to my family since eating is no longer easy going and spontaneous. Now meals are often filled with anxiety, fear, frustration, anger and loneliness.
At work, I feign indifference when treats are served that I cannot eat. I’ve even left the room so I don’t have to have the awkward conversation of why I’m not eating. I’ve put dinner hosts on the spot who didn’t understand the difference between organic and gluten free. When eating away from home, I have to ask questions such as, “Did you use cornstarch or flour for the gravy?” “What brand is this pie crust?”
It’s time consuming and sometimes embarrassing to check all ingredients for hidden sources of gluten and to ask questions for my own safety. I’ve cried in grocery stores out of frustration when I can’t find a suitable food and I’m already hangry, or when I see that the prices of gluten-free foods are sometimes three times the cost of the gluten counterpart.
But it is the ease of baking that I miss the most, especially the baked goods of my Scandinavian roots.
One day, frustrated and on the verge of tears, I called my mom.
She commiserated kindly, sharing tales of her own failed baking to make me feel less alone. I hung up to eat my cardboard-tasting, gluten-free cookies, chased with a healthy swallow of Crown Royal Salted Caramel to counter the biscuit’s gritty residue.
It was my mother, though, who turned things around for me. Never one to make a big scene, she quietly set about finding a way to bake differently. She reached out to her celiac sister in Sweden to get the best gluten-free cake recipes, translated them into English and wrote them on recipe cards for me in her perfectly uniform script. But she didn’t stop there. She mastered gluten-free baking, stunning her family with creations that exceeded anything professionally made.
Nowadays, not a celebration goes by where I haven’t been graced with the love of my mom who has baked something incredible, something Swedish and gluten-free just for me.
With every treat served on those precious deep red glass plates, I’m reconnected to our family traditions and can taste the love with each bite.
Helena Wiest lives in Abbotsford, B.C.