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I have a book called "Eight Immortal Flavors"  by Johnny Kan.  It is a really
good chinese cookbook.  Very broad ranging with a lot of cultural insight.
Most of the recipes can be wheat free if you just swap the soy for tamari.
This is cantonese cuisine made simple.  Excellent book.  It was published in
1980 (at least the copy I have was, I got it at a used book store)  by
California Living Books.  The famous chef, James Beard did the introduction.

I have been reading throught the list of indiginous ingredients and MSG
popped up.  Apparently, not all MSG is wheat derived and originally it came
from seaweed.  I would be interested in finding the original seaweed source
OR which brands are beet or corn based.  I love that "chinese food taste"
that can only be achieved with MSG.  This is what the book had to say.

MSG  (mei jing)

"It seems incredible that this flavor accent powder, a modern product
packaged with a mass production look, did have its origins centuries ago in
Old China.  A charming story, which we like to believe, involved a contest in
which several monks with gourmet tastes competed with each other to produce
the most delicious patch of Lo Hon Jai, the standard monks food consisting of
various vegetarian ingredients.  Because of their religious beliefs,
absolutely no meat products could be introduced for flavor accents. All the
entries were flavorful, but one --the winners--  was really outstanding.  The
winner had added one precious secret ingredient the others did not have -- a
powdered dried seaweed which later was discovered to be the first crude
source of monosodium glutamate.  It was not until 1908 that Dr. Kikunae
Ikeda, the great Japanese scientist successfully extracted glutamic acid from
edible seaweed and from it crystallized monosodium glutamate and marketed it
under the name AJI-NO-MOTO.  Then in 1921, chinese scientist poo-nien
developed a process for extracting Monosodium glutamate from wheat protein
and was marketing his discovery, VE-TSIN in China , Singapore, Malaya and the
Phillipines to the amo0unt of 350,000 lbs a year.  Other raw material sources
are corn, soybean, and desugared beet molasses. Today manufacterers iun the
United States produce billions of pounds of Monosodium Glutamate a year, but
the latest development is the synthesizing of glutamic acid which should
bring the price of MSG within the reach of all.  MSG, described appropriately
at times as --glasses for your tastebuds-- essence of taste -- and food
flavor intensifier -- the wonder powder -- etc.. is sold under many brand
names on the grocery store shelves,  but be sure to buy a reputable brand
such as Ac'cent which is almost 100% pure."