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Hello all,

Perhaps a month ago I sent a question to the list asking advice
concerning our then-upcoming trip to Cyprus. I received about half a
dozen replies, all quite helpful.

All who wrote suggested the salads, yogurts and cheeses, and that
most sauces in restaurants are homemade and most likely didn't use
flour. Two replies in particular were most helpful. One gave me the
web site of the restaurant cards in the various languages. It is from
the Swedish Celiac Society (!): www.celiki.se. On the left side you
click at "oversattningar", then choose "gluten" and you'll get a
number of restaurant cards you can print out, including in Greek. You
can see in the English card what it says in the Greek card. I printed
it out on a piece of paper and showed it to the waiters of the
restaurants. ALL were very accommodating. We were careful during our
trip and my celiac son didn't have so much as a tummy ache!

The other particularly helpful response came from a listmember who is
married to a Cypriot. She had many specific suggestions and I hope
she doesn't mind being quoted here. I actually printed out her e-mail
and took it with me!

"As for foods to avoid, the nice thing about Greek food is that the
gluten is present in very obvious ways:  don't eat baklava, spanikopita,
tiropita, or anything else with a filo wrapping.  Appetizers without the
bread are generally just fine: humus, mellinzanasalata (eggplant dip),
olives or feta.  (Watch out for saganaki, though-- in the US in
restaurants it isn't usually breaded, but my mother in law says they
bread it in Cyprus.)  If you eat meat, you'll have a very easy time,
since Greekmeat dishes are often prepared very simply (the default is
just lemon, olive oil, and pure dried spices like oregano) or in a
tomato and vegetable sauce. Cypriot roasted potatoes are terrific and
should be fine.  For fast lunches, you can always have kabobs of lots
of varieties (chicken or lamb, or the ubiquitous pork).  If you order
your kabobs without bread, you'll usually get rice or french fries
instead in a fast food restaurant.  For breakfast, nothing beats
Greek yogurt (it's made from whole milk, so it's not that great for
you, but it certainly tastes good) with fruit and honey.  There is
also a terrific Cypriot cheese called haloumi.  It is often fried for
breakfast and eaten with eggs, or eaten cold with watermelon (sounds
weird, I know, but it's great)."

The only real food problem was actually not celiac-related. I had
been told about pork and shell-fish being everywhere but I didn't
believe it until I saw it. Since we refrain from eating those items,
it eliminated many of the typical "native" foods we could otherwise
have tried.

But our trip was wonderful and the people are very friendly, even if
they don't speak English, like in the small villages.

Thank you for your wishes for a good trip. It was! Thank you again to
those who wrote me.

Sharon Marcus
Israel