When I decided that our family would no longer eat sugar, my wife, Lizzie, put in the thousands of hours of trial and error needed to create sweet recipes from my chosen substitute, glucose. When I subsequently decided we were no longer to eat foods high in polyunsaturated fats, I really threw her a curve ball. We quickly discovered that very little food in our local supermarket satisfied a rule that excluded both fructose and seed oils. What fructose was to the (largely) dessert menu, seed oils were to everything else we ate.
Suddenly we could no longer buy most supermarket bread. Cracker biscuits were gone. Meat pies were history. Indeed, anything with pastry was probably off the menu. And forget Friday-night-off-for-the-cook fish and chips. But Lizzie stepped into the breach and got to work. Her aim was not just to assemble a recipe collection, but also to make sure the recipes were easy and fuss-free enough for a busy mum or dad to make on a daily basis. Bread that required two hours of kneading was not an option.
Once again, Lizzie has pulled it off. She has put together a terrific collection of really usable everyday recipes and I can’t express my gratitude enough. Without her efforts, the practical part of this book would be very sadly lacking (well, actually, non-existent).
The taste-testing crew (otherwise known as our kids) of Anthony, James, Gwen, Adam, Elizabeth and Fin also deserve special commendation. They have come a long way in their sugar-free travels. It was a big deal to ask them to accept that very little processed food at all would be in their future. Before this book they were getting through a loaf of supermarket bread a day. Now they have none. And that is just one of the major changes our kids have had to take in their stride in the past year or so. They have done it with good humour and even (in some cases) downright joy. Both Lizzie and I are very grateful for their participation in our stampede towards a DIY food supply (see how I made that sound like they had a choice).
I continue to be amazed at the generosity that is shown by our friends and family. Once again the brains in the kitchen at our local school, Tatjana and then, towards the end, Marianne, were a great inspiration with recipe ideas. Anyone who has our company foisted upon them can’t help but be affected. I’m grateful to them all but once again, Beth, Melinda and Mandy stand out with their interest in (and, at times, assistance with) our olde worlde food experiments. The same goes for our family, in particular Beth and Tony (who listen a lot whether they want to or not) and Adam, Sarah, Laura and Wendy who spend their holidays as guinea pigs (with a level of tolerance that is truly impressive).
Nicole Long, Katrina O’Brien, Jocelyn Hungerford and the rest of the team at Penguin did a fabulous job of creating the first version of this book way back in 2013. The newly updated and improved version you now hold in your hands was remoulded by Ariane Durkin and Libby Turner at Pan Macmillan. At both Penguin and Pan Mac, Ingrid Ohlsson was once again the truly visionary publisher.
My good friend Frank Stranges as usual stood around and did nothing (and expects to be paid for it) – otherwise known as taking care of all the agenty business-type stuff.