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hi, Listers -

Has anyone had experience traveling back roads in Japan and eating gluten-free? The big issue, I imagine, is soy sauce. Lots of sauces will include it and many things will be marinated in it. With things like sushi, where it is a condiment: no problem. However, I have no real sense of the breadth of Japanese cuisine or of Japanese cooking techniques, so I don't have a handle on what percentage of it does NOT employ soy sauce (or other gluten-bearing grains). 

n.b.: It does not bother me that I wouldn't be able to eat noodles. I appreciate that some of you will recommend taking gluten-free food with me, but that would defeat the experience I am looking for and hoping for. 

In Tokyo and other large cities where there's lots of selection, you can negotiate your way around the soy sauce. But we are contemplating a hiking tour that goes from Kyoto to Hokkaido on an old road with meals and overnights in small restaurants and inns. 

I am adventurous about food and will eat anything I can, but my fear is that choices will be terribly limited in small places whose kitchens are not set up to customize meals for people they'd interpret as unreasonably picky eaters (the Japanese, I am told, have little patience with food issues. Their cuisine solves the problem by simply not using things like milk products that are problematic for many Asians). 

The tour operators reassure me that there is "always something you can eat." Closer questioning reveals, however, that they don't know that much about Japanese cookery and cannot arrange special meals in advance. Given my love of food, I know I would be terribly disappointed if it turns out that what I can eat is actually not much. 

I shall much appreciate any knowledgeable light anyone can shed on this.

thanks,
Mary Brown
NYC






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