<<Disclaimer: Verify this information before applying it to your situation.>>

Listmates,

First, a heart-felt thank you to all who replied with helpful information. A few even went so far as to ask Japan-familiar friends to field the question and write me. Very kind of them and kind of their friends.

The news is not much better than we'd anticipate:

• the Japanese, while very hospitable and eager to make the traveller happy, are for the most part not familiar with gluten-free. To further complicate matters, the cultural predisposition in favor of group vs. individual thinking/action creates the possibility that hosts/restaurant workers will see special menu requests as terribly rude. "Yes" can mean "I have no idea what you mean, trust that if I ignore the problem it will disappear and I am going to behave as though this never happened."
	One experienced Japan traveller said that when troublesome appetizers or barley tea were set in front of her, her Japanese friend would simply them without saying anything or causing a fuss that might embarrass hosts/restaurant people. Sounds like a good strategy to suggest to a translator if you are traveling with one. 
	
Soy sauce and tamari:
• hon-tamari soy sauce is gluten free. You can buy it and carry it with you. Pretty expensive, so not used for everyday cooking.
• rumors to the contrary notwithstanding, soy sauce even in rural areas does contain wheat.
• regular tamari contains wheat.
• to get an idea of how commonly used is soy sauce, think of trying to cook here w/out salt.

Watch out for:
• rice noodles, while common enough in China, are not so common in Japan.
• soba, or buckwheat noodles, generally either contain wheat or are coated with it.
• eel sushi, which is served with a sauce that includes soy sauce.

What you can eat:
• if yakatori (meat and/or vegetables on skewers) is brownish-looking, that means it's been cooked with soy sauce. Might be able to get plain grilled meat or fish in a yakatori place, however. As for the contamination issue and the need to have your meat/fish cooked on a clean grill or a piece of tin foil.....hmm. Might be tricky.
• most sushi is fine.
• Shabu-Shabu, a dish made from meat and vegetables boiled in water, typically in front of you on the table, does not contain soy sauce. The dipping sauce, however, is a different story.
• Huge variety of vegetables and fruit in Japan
• Tofu
• miso not made from barley
• good restaurants will make their own dashi (broth), which will be gluten-free. But the person who wrote about this added, "...but I can't really think of anything that would have dashi and not soy sauce."
• rice, of course.

Further information:

For dessert, she could try “mochi” (made from sweet rice) “shira-tama” (little mochi made from sweet rice flour) “youkan” (red bean paste cake) “anmitsu” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anmitsu), green tea ice cream (so much better in Japan), among others.
 
Found an interesting Jap/Eng bilingual blog (gal suffers from Celiac’s, fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue AND food allergies…):
 
http://ayainseattle.blogspot.com/2007/08/making-guaranteed-gf-pickled-ginger.html
 
She talks about glutamic acid in pre-packaged Japanese foods not being gluten free.  

A man who works for the tour company whose trip we are considering writes that:

There is one gluten-free restaurant in Roppongi in Tokyo. This is a sister restaurant of one established previously in Melbourne, Australia. The following link is to the restaurant's web site (Japanese and English). The site provides a forum and other information on gluten-free issues besides that directly related to the restaurant.
http://www.nexgeneats.com/s.komatsu/tokyo/indexe.html
 
I have not decided whether to shell out for this trip or not; I love sushi, so keeping body and soul together should be okay. Lugging supplemental GF food on a walking trip sounds like a bad idea, though, and paying a fairly hefty tour price for something I can't enjoy (regional cuisine is a big selling point) strikes me as iffy. Nevertheless, there's lots to like about the tour, and I have always wanted to go to Japan. I shall report back if I do go.

Cheers, everyone. And thanks again. 

Mary B.
NYC



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