THEY SAY that opposites attract, and when it comes to eating habits, my husband Gavin and I are poles apart. Personally speaking, wheat and meat form the meat and potatoes of my diet. The meatier the better — steak tartare, fajitas, shepherd’s pie, roast chicken. Wheat? Bring it on. On the other hand, the mere sight of a floury bap brings Gavin out in a sweat. He has coeliac disease, an inflammatory condition of the gastrointestinal tract caused by gluten, a protein found in wheat, rye, barley and oats (and annoyingly hiding in all sorts of produce where you’d least expect it).

To make matters worse, he doesn’t eat meat, or particularly care for chunky fish like tuna or swordfish, and he's not over the moon about shellfish, either. It’s a testament to our relationship that we bother go out to dinner together at all.

About one person in 100 people in the UK has coeliac disease, but suffer no symptoms, provided they stick to a strict gluten-free diet. They are extremely healthy, as long as they aren’t being reduced to bloated, nauseous saps by someone’s sleight of hand. For despite the figures and a heightened awareness about food in general, a large proportion of waiters and chefs don’t know what the word gluten means. By pure chance, my husband has narrowly escaped being poisoned in eateries across the land.

It’s not that we’re slapdash in our choice of eating establishments. Certain places get an instant wide berth, on account of their looking “too wheaty” — crêperies, North African joints and pâtisseries. By the same token, we walk past restaurants where there’s precious little on the menu other than flesh in its various forms.

Once we settle on a place that seems to tick all our respective boxes, negotiations begin in earnest. A typical exchange, based on a delightful dinner date we had in a vegetarian restaurant, goes like this:

“Excuse me, sorry . . . Before we order I need to ask a few tricky questions about the menu. I’m a coeliac. I’m allergic to gluten.”

“Gloo . . . glooty . . ?”

“GLUTEN. The protein found in wheat, rye, barley and oats.”

“I’ll go and check with chef.”

Returns with a dirty blond surfer type (who looks as if he would rather be in Malibu).

“All our products are the very best, Sir,” says surfer chef. “We buy mainly organic.”

“Yes, that’s great. But you see, I can’t eat any wheat, barley . . .” (Gavin reels off list again) “ . . . or I will be ill.” (He’s not lying — his colour would drain, he would begin yawning intensely, and if he didn’t make himself physically sick immediately, he would get stomach cramps and diarrhoea: the perfect customer.) “Oh, and I don’t eat meat. Or shellfish. Or chunky fish. What can you suggest?” “The fishcakes would be OK.”

“Haven't they got breadcrumbs?” “Yes, but just a bit.”

Chef is thinking: “We’ve got a right one here,” but says: “Everything else on the menu would be all right, except the pasta and the risotto.”

“What's in the risotto, then?” “Rice.”

“No, RICE IS FINE,” snaps Gavin, and launches into it all over again.

On another occasion he chewed into a rogue mouthful of vermicelli which was lurking in his vegetables. “All right,” the waitress mumbled, “I won’t charge you for your drink,” as Gavin turned a whiter shade of pale.

It all makes the idea of staying at home with a (carefully selected) can of baked beans on gluten-free toast quite irresistible.

• Jane Clarke is away

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