Long Island Larder: Winter Warm-Ups

It's a little late to announce signs and portents perhaps, but a trend I've noticed developing is the rebellion against the Fat Police and food fearmongers. I don't mean the pollsters who make a living telling us of the burgeoning fatness of the entire American people - they can make a "study reveals significant. . ." out of almost anything.

It's the K.G.B. of diet, that D.C. organization known as the Center for Science in the Public Interest, that has recently come under serious fire for using bad science to push their fanatical agenda. Michael Jacobsen, "the closest thing we have to a national nag," as Stephen Glass calls him in the Dec. 30 issue of The New Republic, heads C.S.P.I. His histrionic plays to the press -- dressing up like Tony the Tiger while damning sweetened cereals and attaching 170 rotted teeth to a petition sent to the Federal Trade Commission -- have gotten him ink, but also considerable derision from public health professionals.

This organization publishes frequent nutrition and poison scares and last year sent Chinese restaurants into a 25-percent decline with its hysterical attack on an entire 5,000-year-old cuisine.

A former director of the National Institutes of Health declares that C.S.P.I. is actually a misnomer: "It's not always science, and these mini-scares are not in the public interest." The center's board, which consists of an actress, two lawyers, an accountant, a statistician, and an advocate for the poor, led all too vigorously by Michael Jacobsen (a microbiologist by training), has not a single member with medical or nutritional education.

This doesn't inhibit C.S.P.I. from inveighing against meat, alcohol, sweets, caffeine, microwave ovens, and, more recently, movie-theater popcorn and Mexican food. It's my observation that French food is returning to well-deserved popularity after a tedious decade or more of pasta and pizza. It develops that all those carbs haven't led to a svelte, fit population.

Scientists and nutritionists discount the center's many outrageous scare reports because the foods studied aren't placed in the context of how they are consumed. For example, a dish of Kung Pao chicken shared with three other people and eaten with vegetable dishes and plenty of rice does not constitute a threat to health.

Olestra Ordeal

Nor does even a whole bag of popcorn, since most people don't make a steady diet of it. The C.S.P.I. did accomplish one of its objectives though: It's almost impossible to get a bag of popcorn in any movie theater that isn't salt free and totally tasteless. Of course, the center's other objective - abolishing soda pop - will be defeated, as it's necessary to wash down this dry, cottony popcorn with oceans of Coke, Sprite, or whatever.

Knowing how Jacobson and his acolytes hate fat, Proctor & Gamble reasonably expected a hearty endorsement from the center for their new fake fat, Olestra. This product, approved (after 17 years of testing) by the Food and Drug Admistration as a fat substitute for frying things like potato chips, is not digested in the human system, but merely passes through (I've never tried Olestra myself, so can give no opinion on its gastronomic qualities).

However, people who ate large quantities of it - I suppose the sort of "snackers" that crave a bushel basket of potato chips or Cheese Doodles in the middle of the night - suffered temporary diarrhea. This is not exactly a life-threatening condition and one that could easily be duplicated by heeding the current California prune growers ad campaign to snack on dried prunes.

With A Vengeance

What next, I wonder? A huge anti-prune campaign? A skull and crossbones on every bottle of wine or liquor, box of sugared cereal, bag of popcorn, Olestra-tainted potato chips, or french fries? Carrie Nation-style pickax attacks on all the Chinese and Mexican restaurants in America?

Jacobson is known to grill waiters on the ingredients in every dish he orders in a restaurant and pours off, or blots off, all sauces or traces of fat, onto satellite plates he demands to mix up his own noxious "everything free" concoctions.

Enough already! It's small wonder the American public is diving into their buckets of honey-fried chicken and triple "whoppers" with renewed zest. At a Christmas party a young single man told me he cooked mostly out of the books of the 400-pound Cajun chef Paul Prudhomme. Knowing what Prudhomme's notion of "a serving" is, I asked what he did with the leftovers. "I eat them for three nights running" was the answer.

Now that, food fans, is the sort of thing that can lead to nutritional disaster! Not a bag of popcorn or the occasional hush puppy or helping of fried chicken.

Load Up The Larder

I thought the Cajun craze had petered out several years ago, but apparently not: Last night I saw, on a very chic menu, a pecan-crusted sauteed chicken breast that would have Jacobson and his food police picketing the place.

And another friend of mine, whose roots are decidedly European, confessed a newfound love affair with gumbo and beans and rice dishes. The Paradise in Sag Harbor has a nothing if not eclectic menu that features those items as well as a delicious soup made with kale, white beans, and spicy, Cajun andouille sausage.

As the East End heads into the deeps of winter, it might be a good time to lay in supplies of dried beans, root vegetables, canned plum tomatoes, and other nonperishables to face the snowstorms and northeasters with equanimity. Check your oil lamps, candles, batteries, wood pile, and, if you have one, generator too - despite the flawless performance of LILCO, every Long Islander's favorite hometown team.

Acorn Squash And Wild Rice Soup

There can scarcely be anything more American than squash and wild rice and we had this soup to begin Christmas dinner. Acorn, hubbard, or butternut will serve equally well and are plentiful and long-keeping at this time of year.

Makes about three quarts.

2 cups cooked wild rice

2 lbs. acorn squash

Pinch of salt

2 Tbsp. duck fat or butter

1 large onion, sliced thin

2 cloves garlic, minced

1/8 tsp. mace

1 tsp. cardamom, ground

1 tsp. dried coriander, ground

6 cups de-fatted chicken or strong veal stock

Salt and cayenne pepper to taste

1/4 cup creme fraiche or heavy cream (approximate)

Wash, then cook the wild rice in plenty of water and a pinch of salt until it is very soft - much softer than it would be served as a vegetable - at least an hour. Prick the acorn squash and microwave it for three minutes, which will make it much easier to cut in half - peeling these tough squashes raw is nearly impossible.

Place the squash, cut side down, in a glass pie plate with about a quarter cup of water and cover tightly with plastic wrap. Microwave on high for 12 minutes and let stand five minutes. If not tender, microwave a bit longer. With a spoon, scoop out the seeds and pith, then the flesh, and discard the skin.

Melt the duck fat or butter in a deep, heavy soup pot and add the onion, garlic, and spices. Cook over gentle heat about five minutes, stirring often. Add the rice and its cooking water and the squash, the stock, and a little salt and pepper. Simmer it all, covered, for about 20 minutes, then taste and add more salt and cayenne as preferred. Puree the soup in a blender or food processor when it has cooled a bit, then return it to the soup pot to re-warm. To serve - this is enough for eight - ladle the hot soup into individual bowls and trickle a little creme fraiche or heavy cream over the back of a spoon to float swirls on the surface of each.

Kale, White Bean And Andouille Soup

A comforting supper on a cold winter's night, rounded out with a piece of ripe Brie, a whole wheat baguette, and a wicked glass of red wine. And for the truly daring, perhaps a baked pear with frozen yogurt and caramel sauce topping! Leftover soup keeps well for several days in the fridge and can be frozen. Cromer's Market sells andouille, a spicy Cajun dry sausage.

Makes about four quarts.

1 lb. dried Great Northern or white cannelini beans

3 qts. water

2 tsp. coarse salt

2 qts. washed, stemmed kale leaves

2 Tbsp. duck or goose fat, butter, or oil

1 large onion, finely chopped

3 cloves garlic, minced

1 Tbsp. concentrated chicken demiglace or bouillon cubes

1 whole andouille sausage, peeled

Cayenne and black pepper to taste

Wash and soak the dried beans overnight in cold water away from the stove or use the quick soak method described on the package. Simmer the beans in the water about one and a half hours, depending on the age of the beans (this timing can be markedly shortened with a pressure cooker - to about 15 minutes), until just tender but not mushy. Then, and only then, add salt. Salt toughens all dried beans and should never be added until they are almost done.

Toss in the kale leaves and simmer until they are tender - about 15 minutes. Melt the fat or oil in a skillet and saute the onion and garlic; add to the soup along with the chicken bouillon. Andouille has a tough natural casing that should be peeled off before eating or cooking with it. Slice it in quarter-inch rounds and add to the soup.

Heat through and season to taste with cayenne and black pepper - they have different flavors - as Cajun cooking uses them together. Taste and add more salt if necessary. If you can't find any andouille, you might substitute pepperoni.