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that's nothing like the sort of inflation americans experienced under the gold standard. food prices, for example, have been historically volatile - and were even more volatile under the gold standard. also, while it grew slower than under fiat, real inflation also increased under the gold standard - so, the real answer to the question ("is inflation inevitable").... yes, we've always had inflation, under gold and under fiat. that question's a no brainer.
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Well then if the standard were futures on foodstuffs, we wouldn't see this inflation, so it couldn't be inevitable.
Regarding volatility, Consider the reason why food prices were historically more volatile was not due to rapid value changes in the currency but due to seasonal changes in agriculture and crop yields.
Modern technologies and transportation allow us to store, preserve and redistribute foodstuffs to match worldwide markets efficiently and smooth out supply variations.
We can now even transport foods from the southern hemisphere when it's winter in the northern hemisphere. So we are much less reliant on the local farmer having a good crop this season to determine food prices and farmers back then didn't have much beyond grandpa's arthritis to predict the weather either
Now compound all that with an economy being replaced by paper value under the Gold Standard and the ensuing bankruptcies and yes, you'd see large amounts of inflation and volatility in food prices.
Though food prices aren't very volatile now, with a commodity based currency you could actually average in some futures values on foodstuffs as well - just a stock portfolio. So you could almost view is trading redeemable stock certificates instead of paper with no physically backed value behind it.
Another idea I'd heard of was a currency based on land - each "dollar" effectively represents some fraction of an acre, and you could redeem them for land when you wanted. Such a currency would have a very tangible value and be very unlikely to lose value (people always want land). Fun idea!