Italian dishes give the boot to fat
F- ;
by Andrew Levy
Ah... la belle Italia. Que belle
cuisine. Que belle cholesterol.
That's right. If any of you loves
Italian food as much as I do, then
you should be aware that it is
loaded -- loaded - with fat and
cholesterol.
Take a look. What would
lasagne be without your favorite
meat (cholesterol), cheese (choles-
terol), and olive oil (no cholesterol,
but 100 percent fat)? What would
veal parmesan be without the
parmesan?
But the fact of the matter is
that you can eat a delicious Italian-
style meal with almost no choles-
terol, and very little fat.
The key to a low-fat Italian
meal is to use low-fat meats (or no
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meat at all), and cut down on the
cheese and olive oil. And, believe
it or not, you won't notice that it's
missing.
The first thing that you have to
remember in cooking a low-fat
Italian meal is that fried equals fat.
When you fry something, say
for instance the veal in veal
parmesan, you are effectively
drowning it in, and saturating it
with, oil. While I can't disagree
that it improves the flavor, frying
is just another step toward the
dreaded coronary that many of us
are trying to avoid.
Instead of frying your veal,
chicken, turkey, or other filets, try
microwaving them, or if, like me,
you can't stand microwaved meat,
dip it in egg white and Italian-
style bread crumbs and bake it in
your oven. (Italian-style Shake-n-
Bake is easy and good, but not as
good as your own.) You can even,
dare I say it, grill the meat.
If you insist on frying your
meat, try this. Instead of dipping
the meat in an egg before you
bread it, separate the yolk from
the white and just dip it in the egg
white. Egg yolks are 100 percent
cholesterol. And use only one
tablespoon of olive oil per pound
of meat. Your arteries will thank
you later on.
Now, no Italian meal would be
complete without an outstanding
red sauce. For a low-fat red sauce,
the secret (again) is keeping the
oil content low.
First things first. DO NOT use
most store-bought sauces. Not
only do these generally have high
fat contents, but they also have
sugar. You should not need more
than one teaspoon of sugar for any
red sauce.
Here goes. Heat up one
tablespoon of extra-virgin olive oil
in a two-quart sauce pan. Keeping
the heat low, saut6 three to six
chopped, medium-sized cloves of
garlic very slowly - I don't
recommend more than four for
anybody who doesn't love garlic
like I do - until they are just
golden-brown.
At this point, add one third of a
cup of your favourite chablis, one
tablespoon of basil and one of
oregano, one teaspoon of sugar,
one drop of tabasco sauce, and one
teaspoon of salt. Reduce it by
letting about one fifth of the water
boil off (the more you reduce the
sauce, the thicker it gets). Then,
drain half the water out of two
cans of peeled, whole tomatoes
and add that to the mixture.
You can also add one chopped
onion, some green or red pepper,
and half a cup to a full cup of
sliced mushrooms - or whatever
you like. It is your free reign to
experiment, and if you come up
V9OR TH O%,
Andrew Levy " Daniel Poux
"When the moon its your eye like a
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-D an MtTWhs Amore-
with something good, let us know.
Turn the heat down until the
sauce is just simmering and cover.
Stir well every three to five
minutes until the sauce has
reached its desired thckness and
then turn the heat down to low.
I know that this sauce is a lot of
work (it takes between an hour
and an hour-and-a-half), but I can
assure you that the reward will be
exquisite.
If you have less time, use
Classico diNapoli jar sauce as a
base. There is no oil or sugar in it,
just tomato, basil and other spices.
The second essential element
to an Italian dinner is - at least in
my opinion - pasta.
You may be wondering, what
can this guy tell me about pasta
that I don't already know? The
answer is, not much - but there
are some things you may not
know. (Don't contradict yourself
- jw)
For one thing, not all pasta is as
healthy as we would like to think.
In most instances, your basic pasta
has little or no fat at all. In fact,
one of its main benefits is the
amount of filling carbohydrates
contained within.
However, there are some kinds
of pasta that you should look out
for.
Stay away from egg-based pasta
(egg noodles, etc.). This pasta is
the same on the inside from any
other, but is coated with the
dreaded egg yolks. A company
does make no-yolk noodles, but I
can't tell you that I've seen it in
any store around Ann Arbor. Try a
specialty store like Zingerman's or
The Produce Station at the corner
of State and South Industrial -
they might have it.
Another type of pasta to be
wary of is anything that is stuffed,
be it tortellini, tortelloni, or shells.
These are typically stuffed with
either ricotta cheese (can you say
cardiac arrest?) or a low-grade,
high-fat meat that you probably
wouldn't want to see in its initial
form. There is gourmet tortellini
that is stuffed with things like
sun-dried tomatoes and basil, and
if you can afford them, they are
very healthy.
The third additive in a success-
ful dinner is meat. Meat is not
absolutely necessary, but I think it
is an important element. Low fat
is difficult, though, when choosing
meats, and you should be careful
when doing so to pick a form of
meat that is no less than 90
percent fat free.
Now, 90 percent fat-free
sounds pretty good when you first
hear it, but think about it. That
means that what you are eating is
10 percent fat. I try to buy the
lowest fat content that is available
at the market, so do your best.
Also bear in mind that just
because you are buying chicken,
turkey, or veal, it is not necessarily
any lower in fat than beef or pork.
Though this is not the rule,
sometimes these can be very high
in fat.
Veal has a higher cholesterol
count than any other meat (save
liver). Turkey and chicken that
are not trimmed well are high in
fat also. But most good cuts of
pork, surprise-surprise, are
relatively low in fat. If you don't
know what you're buying, ask the
butcher at your market. Generally,
they will even cut you a low-fat
piece at no extra cost.
If you are going to substitute
for beef or pork, here are some
ideas.
Turkey is a great substitute for
any kind of ground meat. Try a 50/
50 mix of ground turkey or beef in
your next batch of meatballs. In
the fresh meat section of any
supermarket, you will be able to
find Italian-style turkey sausages
by The Turkey Store. These, I've
found, rival good Italian pork
sausages. Honest!
The recipes at left are good
examples of low-fat Italian fare.
Bear in mind that you are gener-
ally not sacrificing taste when you
try the fat-cutting measures that I
have suggested.
Doctors and nutritionists
recommend that safe daily fat
intake is 20-40 grams for men, and
20-25 grams for women. Count the
fat in these dishes, and you will
find that it conforms to these
standards.
Just remember that you don't
have to eat the diet of a mouse to
eat healthily. Though it is tradi-
tionally high in fat and cholesterol,
Italian food doesn't have to be -
and the results will surely surprise
you.
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Italian chicken
Marinade'
Ingredients:
1/2 cup balsamic vinegar
1 tbsp. coarse grain mustard
1 tbsp. chopped garlic
1 tbsp. rosemary
1 tsp. five-spice powder
1/4 cup lemon juice
1 tbsp. olive oil
Preparation:
Mix ingredients in a bowl.
Marinate chicken in mixture
overnight. Grill or bake chicken
until ready.
My auntie's
Meatballs
Ingredients:
2 lbs. 95% lean ground beef (or
1 lb. beef and 1 lb. ground
turkey)
2 cups fine Italian breadcrumbs
1 cup parmesan cheese
(optional)
2 sprigs of parsley
2 cloves of finely minced garlic
1 cup skim milk
5 well-beaten egg whites
pinch of salt and pepper
Preparation:
Put meat in bowl and work the
rest of the ingredients into it.
Form into 1-inch balls and brown
in pan coated with 1 tbsp. olive
oil or microwave on full power
for 4-6 minutes. Add to red
sauce.
Chicken&
Peppers
Ingredients:
6 chicken breast pieces
1/2 cup flour
1 clove minced garlic
1 1/2 cups red sauce
1 lb sliced fresh mushrooms
8 oz jar of sweet fried peppers
1 tbsp. olive oil
pinch of salt, pepper & oregano
Preparation:
Cut chicken into strips and dust
with flour. Heat oil in large skillet
and add garlic and oregano. Add
chicken strips and saut6 until
tender, but not brown. Add
marinara sauce, mushrooms,
peppers, and seasoning. Cover
and simmer for 15-20 minutes.
Serve with rice or pasta. To keep
warm, place in 150° oven.
RP: It seems to meethough,
that often this process ends up
creating hatred. For example, in
Crown Heights, there was a lot of
violence there, after you came
through and marched.
AS: That's a lie. You didn't hear
last night, it's very well-documented:
I was called in after the violence. Even
The Village Voice, which is my critic,
states that. So that is an illusion that
we countered all last night, and you
still didn't hear it. That is absolutely a
lie.
There is always an after-effect of
any movement. You could say that
after Dr. King integrated the buses
down south, there was a lot of hatred,
a lot of whites resented having to sit
next to Blacks. Does that mean that
Blacks should have stayed in the
back, because of people's reaction?
No! There are going to be growing
pains. There are going to be
problems.
You cannot expect social progress
not to cost somebody some
discomfort. But you can not expect
people to stay in positions of
oppression, to secure other people's
comfort. And raising racial tensions is
not in itself bad. If you are not making
social progress, that is what is bad.
So if the tension on campus is
raised, so that we can readjust it and
make it more fair, then that's a worthy
price to pay.
RP: So do you think that in the
other situations where tensions
have been raised, things have been
readjusted and made more fair?
AS: Absolutely. You know, a girl
said to me last night that she comes
from Brooklyn, and she was there
when (one man) got killed and
nothing happened. And she was glad
that I had come and started bringing
these things to the light. When
people start going to jail for
committing murders that were not
going to jail before, that makes society
work. That makes the judicial system
work.
So it wasn't just that we were out
there in the abstract, saying let's get
mad, let's raise tension. We were
making the justice system in New
York become more equitable for
everybody. That's progress. If the
price we had to pay was raising
tensions - and mostly those tensions
were raised against us; the apples and
the watermelons and the knife-
wounds and all were directed against
us, so we were sacrificing ouseka -
then that's a price you've got to pay.
There has been no other way we
have discovered in history, studying
King and others, that you can do it. If
there was a nice way to do it, we
would do it. There is no nice way to
do it. But there is no excuse for it
being a test for you to accept
oppression and accept a double
standard.
GR: You've mentioned Dr.
King a few times now. Is he to you
the ideal of a Black leader in this
wountry?
AS: I think Dr. King is definitely
one of my heroes. I think Dr. King
was the ultimate leader in terms of his
intellect, his action in terms of trying
to remain nonviolent, and I think that
ultimately, Dr. King represents
leadership, Black and white, at its
best. I'm nowhere near King, because
I still react, I get angry, I get
emotional. Ile's so mature and above
that. I have other heroes, but Dr. King
is still an example to me of leadership
at its best.
GR: How you reacted to his
comment that the whole scene
with Clarence Thomas and Anita
I hill before the Senate Judiciary
Committee was a "high-tech
lynching."
AS: I think it was very curious that
he discovered his race so late in the
game, that he opened up sounding
like Bush and closed sounding like
me. If I had called something a "high-
tech lynching," they would have said
I was using race and put me out, but it
was fine for Clarence to use race to
get himself out of trouble.
But I do think that there were
smacks of them imposing a double-
standard. The hearings were closed. I
don't remember anyone before
having hearings reopened for
something the senators already had in
front of them, information they
already had. So it was obviously a
chance for a public media thrashing of
Thomas. They already had these FBI
memos and could have pursued them
in the first hearings. So I think that he
was technically correct, but I suspect
his motives.
GR: Now that he's been
through this baptism by fire, is he
more acceptable to you?
AS: Not at all. I don't think his
views have changed. I don't think
he's expressed any change in his
views. I think he's one of the most
dangerous forces against the
aspirations of what I consider
progressive people and Black people
in the history of this country.
RP: You've said that many
conservative Black leaders, like
Thomas or Shelby Steele or Roy
Innis, are media creations. Don't
you see yourself, at least to a
certain extent, as a media
creation?
AS: No. I think the media tries to
take credit for me, but the fact of the
matter is, I've been involved in the
civil rights movement for 24 years.
The media wught me in action. The
media didn'tput me in action. The
connotation of "media creation" is
that the media comes and gets
somebody and says, "Look. Act like
this. Dress like this. do this. We are
setting you up as a star." The media
didn't do that to me. The media
covered what I was doing. The media
did not create what I was doing, the
media did not cultivate what I was
doing, the media did not choreograph
what I was doing. The media covered
the fact that there was a bunch of
people moving around these issues.
That's not a media creation, that's
media coverage.
"Media creation" is to go and get a
guy like Shelby Steele off of campus
and say, "You are now the new
thought of Black America going
conservative, and we're going to give
you a frontline show and give you this
and give you that." We didn't have to
do that because the media covered
using action. And the media still
covers us in action. I don't have a
show in the media. I am not
choreographed by the media.
RP: A lot of people have
criticized you for simply protesting
and criticizing people, and not
proposing any constructive
solutions-
AS: I've got all of the solutions that
limitations. There is no reason why
they shouldn't succeed. They are not
facing a limitation based on their race.
Black people could do the same.
Caribbean Americans are very
industrious people, but they are
limited by race, and every strata in the
social set-up tells you that. If there's
no limitations, then it's not any
unusual thing that you've been able
to achieve, because there's nothing
stopping you from achieving.
The problem with Black people's
achievement is not that they don't
want to achieve or don't have the
ability to achieve, they've been
stopped from achieving because there
were racial barriers that were there to
stop them. Some by law, until 20
years ago. So you can't compare a
Black person coming to this country
from the Caribbean 30 years ago with
a white because, by law he could not
go but so far in society if he was.
GR: But there are other groups
that have been the victims of
racism. Asians-
AS: There is none that have been
the statutory victim of racism in this
country. It was against the law, for
Blacks.
GR: But Asians were
forbidden from entering the
country. There were quotas.
AS: No, but once they got here
there was no law saying Asians could
not go to the library, Asians could not
do all those things, there was no law
saying that. There were some social
customs that they had to deal with,
and that affected them. But there was
never a law set up against Asians in
this country
...You can't compare people that
have no right by law to people that are
just facing the customs or the
emotional feelings of people. There's
no comparison to that. The Asian has
to face your attitude. I have no right at
all, until 25 years ago. And there's no
comparison to that.
GR: How do you, as Reverend
Sharpton, a man of God, feel
when you're the focal point of so
much hatred that's either directed
at you or, like last night, brought
out by your presence?
AS: Well, if one takes a good look
at the Bible, I think most of the
characters in the Bible are the focal
point of hostility. I don't think Jesus
was given a banquet, he was given a
crucifixion. So I think that's totally in
line with my Judeo-Christian
background...
GR: You spoke a few minutes
ago about the importance to you
of setting up new systems for
punishing race related crimes.
Now I'm, curious - most crimes, I
think the vast majority, are intra-
racial. It's always neighbor against
neighbor.
AS: And you don't have a problem
getting them prosecuted. Your
problem is getting prosecution on bias
crimes. And if you can make a
policeman - a crime against a
policeman - more than a crime
against a regular citizen then my
Rev. Al Sharpton
you need to begin the process... I
think what people don't want to do is
they don't want to get a solution.
They just want to argue. If they want
to argue, then they shouldn't just take
it out on me. Just sit around and
argue! ...We need an economic
program where Blacks can own and
operate the economy of their
community, which will provide the
employment that we need and give
us the self-esteem that we need...
We need an effective civil rights
bill... These are concrete things that I
raised.
The other thing is, what did Dr.
King do? Dr. King was the most
moral activist of this century! But
King protested. Dr. King didn't write
the civil rights bill; Dr. King didn't
write the voters' rights bill; Dr. King
did the protests that created the
climate for the civil rights bill and the
voters' rights bill to come into effect.
That's what I'm doing. What
someone is saying is that they want
me to do the protest and write the
legislation. And I'm saying that I am
an activist, not a messiah. I do a part of
it. I don't do it all.
GR: How you account for the
fact that many immigrants arrive
in this country, usually speaking
no English at all, and yet within
ten years they're very successful
businessmen, they have kids going
to some of the best schools-
AS: They have no social
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I . .
-ir 4WONAL
November 1, 1991
WEEKEND
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WEEKEND
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