Real feelings and fake KFC

The elimination diet that I have been talking about, devised by Dr Alejandro Junger, is about eliminating foods that cause inflammation and therefore pain, in the body. The list of foods is long, you can google it to see what they are. I wrote earlier of my despondency with superfoods, which are a central tenet of this diet. I was missing the foods I loved, and becoming a bit suspect on the claims made by some of the manufacturers.

Shortly after that post I decided to do the 21 day first phase again, and recalibrate. I was getting too free and easy with a lot of restricted foods, with the result that my back and hips were once again aching and I was irritable and tired. In spite of my regular yoga, and mostly on track eating. I just didn't feel as good as when I was 'eliminating'. (Yuck. Sorry. It's not actually that kind of 'eliminating'). It was obvious to me that there was something to this. Time to start again. But first a little reflection on the difficulties I had last time. Learn from those mistakes.

The issue is not that there is forbidden food. I am creative enough to make passable quinoa and brown rice porridge with coconut milk and cinnamon. Endless pots of rooibos tea will get me through. The issue is that eating these new foods does not trigger any of those deeply conditioned feelgood responses in my brain. I haven't yet any feelgood associations around a steaming bowl of rice porridge, or a clean, golden cup of rooibos. Even just the thought of a thick, creamy, brown-sugared bowl of hot oats tickles my endorphins. Freakishly, my grain addicted brain visualises the sensory experience of eating buttery toast so vividly, I'm sure I get a rush from it. I have started reading about it here. That is a whole other can of worms.  I know I was hanging out for the feeling that eating these foods gives me. Not the actual taste of the food, but it's associations, the food memories.

 I was also craving those foods with years of cultural conditioning behind them. You absolutely know what I am talking about- a pie at the footy, hot jam donuts at the market, birthday cake, pancakes on Sunday morning. How do you recreate these feelings, re-enforce these moments, replace those foods and get that rush? Can you build new personal food culture, reinforce the endorphin effect when you are starting so late in life? What do you do, when you used to bake, potter around the kitchen, then devour the product of the mornings efforts? When almost every activity (and associated feelings- happy sad, joy, fear, love) is reinforced with food?

Well, I think it may be possbile to still do that, actually, but a bit differently. I'm working on this a little at a time. With equal measure of success and failure.

The irony of the success of this recipe is that we never, ever eat any takeaway chicken, whatsoever. Ever. I have created the closest thing to a thickly crusty, juicy KFC wing without having tasted one for 25 years. I am more happy with the fact that my whole family devoured these, alongside some simple pumpkin soup and garlic bread and we created our own feelgood moment, with happy winter-in-the-kitchen memories.

Baked Crusty Chicken Wings

12 chicken wings, with the spiky-end tip trimmed off
1 cup brown rice flour or corn flour
3 eggs lightly beaten (or for elimination diet, 1 cup almond milk (or any dairy free milk)
2 cups white rice crumbs, 1/2 cup sesame seeds
Salt, pepper, ground coriander, smoked paprika

Set up a crumbing station. Do this along the kitchen bench. Set out next to each other, one deep bowl with the flour, one deep bowl with the beaten eggs, one with the crumbs and sesame seeds, seasoned with the salt, pepper coriander and paprika, about a pinch of each.

Line a flat baking tray and turn on the oven (200c).

Wing by wing, dip first in the flour, then the egg, then the crumbs to coat completely. Lay the crumbed wing on the tray and continue until all the wings are done. You will have crumbed your fingers in the process, but this is not really a problem, is it? Rub the crumbs off over the bin, then wash your hands to save clogging the sink.

Spray liberally with olive oil spray (or drizzle some from a bottle, that's fine too). Bake them in the oven for 40 min to 1 hour until deeply crispy and tender inside. You must wait, if they aren't slippery and yielding, your enjoyment will be interrupted. Just wait. It's worth it.