Is it just thatthe gluten protein is unique? Or is there something else going on?
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Gluten is the primary protein in bread and an important structural element. Regular flour is about 12% gluten, so removing it is a lot like building a brick wall without mortar.
Every protein is ridiculously complex. Just working out basic stuff about them like their folded shape is horrifyingly complicated even now.
Working out how proteins interact with other stuff, plus cooking, then interact with taste buds (which are again ludicrously complicated)? Not easy.
Imagine being told you could make a computer but couldn’t use silicon – it’d be technically possible (you could use something known but slow like gallium arsenide or something futuristic that requires more research so will be more expensive like nanotubes) but you’d end up with compromises in the finished product – it’d either not match up to the original in important areas or would be much more costly.
Gluten proteins are like old-timey coiled telephone cords. As the dough is stretched and kneaded, the cords get tangled together and form a springy structure that cannot come undone. This happens because kneading stretches the proteins, and gluten proteins in particular will bond with each other when they’re stretched out. Other grain proteins don’t form the same bonds, so they fold back into little individual balls when kneaded. You can knead gluten-free flour for hours and never end up with stretchy dough. Sucks for bread making.
Your sort of asking why apple is so important in apple pie. The gluten is what makes the bread to the old world magic, and is why we use wheat for bread rather than other grains.
The gluten free pizza where I work is actually a cauliflower pancake. It’s almost tasty (though gummy) but is very far away from the material a wheat pizza would become, largely because it is a batter, whereas wheat is a dough that depends on gluten for elasticity and tension, which is hard to pull off in baked goods.
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