i can tolerate anything....

except intolerance.. or so someone once said..possibly the Beard himself, but possibly, indeed probably not... but I digress... but I was musing this morning, whilst travelling up towards Kirk Langley on the changing nature of food intolerances and attitudes towards.... now, when I first became intolerant to milk, at the age of four, and it seems now not connected to a bout of mumps at all, no one I knew had ever heard of someone who couldn't have milk....even at 18 I was considered a bit of a freak.. peanut allergies were just coming into style, and coeliac problems were of course well known, but this was long before the spectre of lactose intolerance, caused in some cases, mine included, by a lack of faulty genetic material, had begun to haunt the pages of women's health magazines and the GMTV sofa.... we few with the problem (including, so I am reliably informed,75% of all sub-saharan Africans and their ancestors, descendants and forcibly shipped American cousins...) were treated like fussy eaters.... to the extent that a teacher once forced a lump of cheese pie into my mouth (those were the halcyon days of teacher power) and was very surprised by my projectile vomitting and severe case of the squirts 15 minutes later.... but I digress again.... starngely back then, someone with genuine problems was a wierdo, but someone who didn't like Chinese food, or tuna, or mayonaisse was totally accepted..... now of course, it seems to be the other way around.... everyone and his dog has some sort of (mainly self diagnosed) dietary intolerance ( and I'm not attacking intoleranced people...remember, the Beard himself has more than a lactose problem.. my genes apparently stopped accepting milk proteins, fats and sugars at the age of weaning, and unlike the more developed of our species, never aquired the gene that allows the milk of other mammals to be digested... so even the goats milk is off the menu.... soya milk, awful tasting as it undoubtedly i, is ok.. but finding the teats on the beans to get the milk is proving a thankless task... but I digress...) and whereas some peopel do find relief from cutting out wheat and milk from their diets, this does seem to be partly to do with the incredible power of teh placebo effect, and the natural effect of finally widening the diet after too much dependency on (a) a food meant for the babies of a different species and (b) possibly the most hybridised, treated, refined grass product there is.... this is bound to make anyone feel better, in the same way that switching from processed mushy peas to fresh garden ones, or from white bread to coarse wholemeal would.... too much wheat is bad for you.... but whatever, nowadays, not liking such modern staples as beef chow mein, tuna and mayo sandwiches and spaghetti bolognese is now seen as wierd... so teh Beard still cannot eascape being seen as fussy.... sometimes I feel I must be the only person in the world who can't stand tuna or salmon (partly I admit because I associate the smell with cancer, but thats by the by...) or indeed any other fish that isn't white and out of the sea... cod, haddock, coley, sea bass.. absolutely fine.. but with my aversion to salmon, fish eggs, and rare steak ( medium at the very least... sorry) I feel as out of place at a posh do as I did at the cheese and wine party I attended... as a designated driver.... and don't get me started on Mayo.... and not the area of Ireland.... sorry but the idea of beating together oil, vinegar and raw egg seems like some bizarre hangover cure, not something I would want with my food.... but dietary problems such as this cause problems all round... having to check ingredients is a minor inconvenience, down there with the dread of new and improved recipes, which invariably involve the adding of some milk related product.. why doi I need skimmed milk powder in my salt and vinegar crisps.. and for all the gods' sakes, what idiot though it was a good idea to put stilton in a steak and kidney pie.... the man should be shot.. and all food designers should be made to say "cheese is not an improvement" ten times a day... for its amazing where you will find the dread stuff... although as an aside, one brand of cheese and onion crisps had no milk products inside at all..... they were very proud of their artificial flavourings... oh, the heady days of the seventies... but i ramble and ramble... and once more i forget the point i wished to make.... except to say that just as attitudes to dietary intolerances have cahnged, so have attitudes to any intolerance... but unfortunately, just as the gluten free are no longer strange, but the tuna free are, so the butts of our other, more destructive intolerances have not faded away, merely changed shape and colour... years ago it was blacks, and asians, and jews, and gays.... now its muslims, afghans poles, eastern europeans... true, pockets of the old intolerances still persist, but soon we'll have forgotten who we were at war with.. its the old Eastasia/Eurasia thing again.... the war never ends.. only the name of the enemy changes.. and if you don't get it, read 1984.... Mel did, and I hope it meant something to her.... and hi to Roberto Ferrari while I'm at it.. but to sum up, if every one was a bit more tolerant, it would at least boost the agriculture sector.... so until we can all tolerate the tolerant and intolerant alike, Wisebeard salutes you!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!