Gluten Free Restaurants and Cafes in Sydney

I've been tracking gluten free restaurants in Sydney for years and the list on my phone is now so long I thought I may as well publish it online. 

A Rainbow Lorikeet (by Sardaka)

Sydney, Inner City

Wholegreen Bakery Cafe (Australian)

257 Clarence Street, Sydney 
Mon-Sat: 8am-3pm; Sun: closed (totally GF)

The Rocks Cafe (Australian)

99 George St, The Rocks

Mon-Sat: 7.30am-9pm; Sun: 7.30am-5pm

Loftus Lane Cafe (Australian)

Shop 3, 38-42 Bridge St, Circular Quay

Mon-Fri: 6.30am-3pm; Sat-Sun: 8am-3pm

Eastbank Cafe (Australian)

61-69 Macquarie St, Circular Quay

Mon-Sun: 11am until late

Opera Bar (Australian)

Sydney Opera House, Lower Concourse, Sydney

Sun-Thurs: 11am-12am; Fri-Sat: 11am-12.30am

Northern European Food Curse – Salicylate Sensitivity

"Kitchen Scene" by van Rijck (17th century)

There is a well-known trope about British people having the runs after a night eating curry. One of the reasons for this, at least for some, is salicylate sensitivity – a heritable food intolerance that many people know nothing about, though it is estimated to affect perhaps around 2.5% of Europeans. An allergy specialist I saw years ago described the phenomenon as “edge of the world syndrome”, she told me that on some days every person in her waiting room with food sensitivities was red-haired, and explained that many people with northern European ancestry are today eating a diet that is utterly alien to that of their ancestors. Basically, northern Europeans adapted to eating a diet that was, for the most part, naturally low in salicylates. In so doing some of them lost the ability to efficiently metabolise the higher amounts of salicylates naturally found in the skin of most fruit, herbs and spices (as well as many vegetables) found further south on the globe – foods that are becoming increasingly common in modern Western diets. Today, many people put up with the symptoms of salicylate sensitivity because the symptoms are either mild enough to ignore or because they don’t understand the root cause of troubling health issues. 

The Ancestral Diet of the Germanic People

"Julaftonen" by Carl Larsson (1904)

As creatures of evolution we should ideally be consuming a diet consistent with our human biology, which arguably means looking at what our ancestors ate. As someone with predominately Germanic heritage (plus a little bit of Celt) I want to take a look at as many reputable sources as I can to understand what the indigenous diet of the Germanic people is, noting that it will overlap a good deal with the indigenous diet of other Indo-European peoples. 

Before humanity 

Humans are primates belonging to the subgroup known as great apes. Primates are believed to have evolved around 65 million years ago, following the mass extinction event which brought an end to the age of dinosaurs. Apes evolved around 25 million years ago, mostly or exclusively in heavily forested environments. Our primate cousins – monkeys and lesser apes – never really left their homes in the branches and tend to eat mostly leaves and fruit. Other great apes are still animals of the forest but they are bigger and able to roam forest floors. At least 87% of their diet is plant based (especially fruit), supplemented by insects. Chimpanzees, our closest relative, also eat meat. Our lineage separated from the chimpanzee line around 7 million years ago, so it is likely our ancestors have been eating meat (and other parts of animals, such as organs and bone marrow) for millions of years – ie, long before we evolved into modern humans. 

Aesculapius – Skillful Healing

"A sick child brought into the temple of Aesculapius" by Waterhouse (1877)

Mythological origins of Aesculapius

In the Roman tradition Aesculapius is the God of medicine. Myth proclaims him as the son of the God of healing (Apollo); the father of the Goddess of good health (Salus);* a favourite of the Goddess of skilfulness (Minerva, who gifted him the blood of Medusa, which could restore the dead to life), and as a child he was said to have been a student of Chiron – a centaur renowned for his wisdom and skill as a doctor. There are a number of stories associated with Aesculapius, most of them Greek in origin, like the God himself. In The Nature of the Gods Cicero (1st century BC) tells us:

Bacchus, the Liberator

"Bacchus" by Solomko (earliest 20th century)

The simplest way to comprehend Bacchus (also known as Dionysus and Liber) is to understand him to be the God of the vine and of wine, and all that is associated with wine. Ancient Romans shared many of our contemporary associations with wine, such as cheerfulness, licentiousness and night-time partying, but beyond this the ancients added a sacred dimension. In Latin the name of the God, Liber, literally means free.* The English word liberty derives from it, and that which the word stands for was sacrosanct to the Romans. Bacchus is also the God of libations, with wine being integral to many Roman rites, and the divine patron of religious intoxication and ecstasy, which presumably played a role the Dionysian mysteries. The God also has a dark side, and not only because his revels are often traditionally associated with the night. In liberating his devotees from ordinary cares and inhibitions he momentarily breaks the order of things. When Bacchus holds sway traditional social bonds loosen, including those of class, the family, gender relations, even the order of the State – and the mind – may dishevel. The Hellenic myths relating to King Pentheus and King Lycurgus spell out the danger, a danger that went beyond the mythical in the 2nd century BCE, when the Roman Senate felt compelled to restrict the practice of Bacchic religion.
 

Apollo – Healing, Music and the Sun

Copy of the Apollo Belvedere (2nd century CE)

Apollo’s cult in Rome

In both the Roman and Hellenic pantheons Apollo is the God of healing (and illness), light, music, poetry and prophecy. The ancients often identified Apollo with the sun itself and thereby twinned with the moon, thus Diana. In this guise he may be known as Sol, Phoebus or Helios. Popular mythology designates him as the son of Jupiter and Latona, though Cicero records that in ancient times there were multiple myths in relation to the Gods – some with which we are no longer familiar.  For example, by one tradition Minerva is the mother of Apollo and by another his father is Vulcan. Despite conflicting mythologies, ancient authors agree on his fundamental attributes. Foremost, at least in the Roman pantheon, he is a God associated with healing, good health and protection from disease (Beard et al; Turcan; Warrior). The earliest evidence we have of his worship in Rome dates to the 5th century BCE, when an appeal to heal a pestilence and a vow to honour him with a temple was made – though we know he was worshipped in Pompeii since at least the 6th century BCE. By the 3rd century BCE Ennius listed Apollo as one of the Dii Consentes, ie, one the major Gods of Rome, and coinage bearing his image was minted. His cult became even more celebrated during the reign of Augustus, who especially promoted Apollo, inter alia, by dedicating a magnificent new temple to him on the Palatine Hill where the Sibylline books came to be kept. More than this, Augustus specifically identified himself with Apollo in various ways. When he was a young man he famously dressed as Apollo at a lavish party. In his war with Mark Antony he credited Apollo’s favour as the reason for his victory. A myth even arose that he was the son of the God, as recorded by Suetonius:

Minerva – Skilled Thought and Action

"Perseus Armed by Mercury and Minerva" (detail) by Bordone (c.1550)

Minerva is the Goddess of skillfulness and industriousness, or, to put it another way, Minerva is the divine spirit (numen) of skilled action and skilled thought. Caesar describes Minerva as she who “bestows the principles of arts and crafts”, and so she is the patron Goddess of any profession associated with skilled workmanship, thus carpenters, painters, sculptors, teachers, health care workers, shoemakers, anyone associated with the textile industry, indeed any artisan. Propertius describes Minerva as the Goddess of the chaste arts, and Cicero, Tibullus and Horace all refer to her as a chaste, or maiden, Goddess. Horace calls her “industrious”. She also has another significant aspect, a martial one. Ovid tells us that “fierce wars are waged by Minerva’s hands”, and calls her the “armed Goddess”  who likes “unsheathed swords”. Thus in iconography she is typically identifiable by her helmet. Though Mars is the God of war, he is more commonly associated with the bloody violence of war, whereas Minerva is associated with military strategy (skilled thought leading to skilled action), without which no war can be won.

The Gods of Misery

"Nott" (Germanic Goddess of Night) by Arbo (19th century)

When misery comes at first one struggles against it. One tries to make things right, shake it off, force a smile, rise above it all and be kind and open hearted. Then hour by hour and day by day one somehow forgets how to be happy. Dull resentment, a sense of isolation and a sort of hopeless surrender to melancholia entrenches itself. One stops trying … and one stops crying. At this point one is lost in misery – yes, Gods of darkness and depression, it is easy to have faith in you.

But who are these Gods? To start off with we acknowledge that any God that can give a blessing can take that same blessing away – thus, for example, Apollo is the God of both healing and disease. In a similar vein, Ovid tells us that ancient Roman farmers made offerings to the God of wheat leaf rust, Robigo, not because they wanted Robigo to visit their crops, but to persuade her to stay away from them. It follows then that if we honour the Gods of misery, perhaps we can placate them, perhaps they will leave our sides sooner, though some of us, let’s be honest, take some kind of enjoyment in their company, lugubrious though it is.

Salus – Health and Well Being

"Hygieia" (the Hellenic Salus) by Klimt (1900)

Salus is the Goddess of safety, health, well being and, according to some translations, salvation. If we think of the English word deriving from her name – salubrious – we get an idea of who she is. The Arval Brothers, priests in charge of public sacrifices made for the well being of Rome, prayed and made offerings to her not just for the safety of the city of Rome but also for the health and fertility of the entire Roman community, including its animals and farms (Beard et al, Religions of Rome: Volume 1 at 52). The Nones/fifth of August was the day on which she was honoured most, with circus games and the public sacrifice of a cow (Beard et al, Religions of Rome: Volume 2 at 73). She was revered from at least as early as the 4th century BCE, with her temple on the Quirinal Hill being founded in 302 BCE (Rüpke, Religion of the Romans at 55). In the 4th century CE her temple in Rome still stood – despite being twice hit by lightning, in 276 and 206 BCE, and damaged by fire in the 1st century CE (and then restored) – and she appeared on Roman coinage up until the reign of the Christian emperor Constantine I (Rüpke, A Companion to Roman Religion at 162; Platner, A Topographical Dictionary of Ancient Rome). In her public aspect she was known as Salus Publica and even Salus Augusti – for during the imperial era the well being of the emperor was equated with the well being of Rome as a whole (Lipka, Roman Gods at 95). Another title was Salus Romana – Ovid briefly mentions that an offering should be made to her, alongside Janus, Concordia (Goddess of peaceful agreement) and Pax (Goddess of peace), on 30 March (Ovid, Fasti, Book 3). It may be that the three Goddesses shared a temple founded on that date (Boyle and Woodard’s notes to the Penguin edition of Ovid, Fasti at 229); at the very least we know there were statues of these Goddesses in Rome, erected by Augustus (Wiseman’s notes to the Oxford World’s Classics edition of Ovid, Fasti at 136).

Salubrious Food

Gods of Healthy Eating

There are a number of significant Roman Gods of food including:

• Ceres, Goddess of agriculture, especially regarding grain – which today we associate with, inter alia, wheat, barley, rye, oats, maize and rice. In ancient times she was mostly associated with wheat (Romans did not eat maize or rice); bread being perhaps the most important food in ancient Rome. Ceres was one of fifteen Roman deities who had an official cult, including a designated flamen (priest). Her festival, the Cerealia, was celebrated in April.