WHEN the woman organising the Irish Heart Foundation's Happy Heart At Work Fundraising Drive, taking place this weekend, told me that we had the highest rate of heart disease in the EU, I asked the obvious question.
"You don't mean to say we have a higher rate of heart disease than Scotland?"
"We do," she replied.
What sort of things are we eating that we have overtaken "The Land With No Fresh Vegetables". as the food editor of the Guardian once described Scotland?
But it's true. We have almost double the average rate of premature death from heart disease in the EU, and the fifth highest rate of coronary heart disease in the world; 14,000 people die every year from heart attack, stroke and related illnesses, accounting for almost half of all deaths here.
But the real rub is this. As the Irish Heart Foundation points out, many of the 8,000 premature deaths "could be prevented or delayed by making small and gradual changes in lifestyle
Which means, for one, eating the right things - foods which are beneficial rather than detrimental to our health. The foods which do us good are all familiar things: grains and pulses, fresh fruit and vegetables, ginger and garlic, and plenty of red wine to calm us down and to help us digest properly.
The significant thing about choosing healthy foods is that they are not in any way self-denying, nor do they require us to embark on a crash-bang-wallop diet.
Raymond Sokolov writes in his marvellous new book, 117th The Grain, a book which proposes putting grains and plant-foods rather than animal-foods at the centre of our diet: "Most diets fail because they attempt to compel a dramatic departure from traditional eating patterns. For a time dieters give up something they have grown up thinking was a natural part of eating. But such is the power of culturally ingrained ideas and habits that people almost inevitably go off their diets after a brief period of religious commitment."
As the Heart Foundation points out, "small and gradual changes in lifestyle" can solve the problem. Sokolov tackles these changes by suggesting that we think first of grains when we think about eating, and consider what we can do with barley, corn, oats, rice, wheat and so on. His solutions are ingenious, and for the most part traditional, for adopting an animal-foods diet is only a recent phenomenon in our way of eating.
Among his dishes is a clever Barley Risotto with Ruby Chard and Mushrooms, where he treats barley like a risotto rice. "This idea has already occurred to several chefs working in the metaphorical and historicizing atmosphere of the nouvelle cuisine," he writes. I like to jazz this up, by frying lots of garlic and ginger together before the barley is added, and then splashing on some soy sauce at the end to give it a bit of a kick.
Barley Risotto with Ruby Chard and Mushrooms
(For the ruby chard, you can substitute any of the spinach-like greens such as spinach itself Swiss chard, beet greens, mustard greens or kale. Any gilled mushrooms will stand in nicely for the oyster mushrooms.)
8 cups chicken stock
Oil
2 cups barley
1lb ruby chard, washed, with leaves trimmed from stems and stems chopped
Salt
1lb mushrooms, preferably oyster mushrooms, coarsely chopped
Bring the chicken stock to a boil, reduce the heat, and keep at a very low simmer, covered.
Heat two tablespoons of the oil in another large saucepan. Add the barley and cook for a minute or two, stirring constantly, so as to coat all the grains.
Pour in one cup of simmering stock and continue to simmer stirring constantly until virtually all the liquid has bean absorbed. Add another cup of stock.
Continue as before, adding additional stock until it has been totally imbibed by the barley, about 40 minutes. If the barley is still not soft enough for your taste, continue with boiling water, adding one cup at a time, as with the chicken stock until it is soft. Remove from the heat and keep covered.
While the barley is absorbing the stock, put the chard leaves with water clinging to them in a saucepan, cover, set over low-medium heat, and cook until the leaves wilt. Set the chard aside, covered.
Meanwhile, heat two more tablespoons of the oil in a large skillet and saute the chard stems with salt, to taste, until they are almost softened. Add the chopped mushrooms and continue sauteing until the mushrooms give up their water and the water evaporates. (The temperature in the pan will rise at this point, and the oil will sizzle.) Cover and set aside, off the heat, until the barley is finished.
When the barley is done, stir in the chard-stem-mushrooms mixture. Drain the chard leaves and arrange them on a serving platter in a thin layer that covers the entire platter, reserving a couple of leaves for decoration. Spread the barley risotto in a mound over the chard leaves, leaving a visible margin of chard leaves. Arrange the reserved leaves on top of the barley mound. Perhaps you will want to cut the leaves in strips and made a design with them.
Against The Grain is published by Knopf in the US, and available from Books for Cooks in London (0171) 221 1992.
GINGER is a wonderful health-giving plant. In his book Ginger, The Ultimate Home Remedy, Dr Stephen Fulder suggests that ginger should be taken regularly by those whose circulation needs waking up and warming up. This includes people who suffer from arteriosclerosis and are at risk of heart disease from poor diet, lack of exercise, and so on." Here is a good way to get a double shot of ginger, from the She Cookbook. Use wild salmon, just coming into season now.
Salmon with Double Ginger
5ml (1 teaspoon) sesame oil
2 salmon fillets, each weighing about 150g (5oz)
50g (2oz) piece fresh ginger, peeled and finely chopped
5ml (1 teaspoon) dry mustard
5ml (1 teaspoon) coarse salt
5ml (1 teaspoon) freshly ground black pepper
5ml (1 teaspoon) peanut oil
Rub the sesame oil into the flesh of the fish. Pat five millilitres, (one teaspoon) of the ginger onto the flesh side of each fillet, spreading it with your fingers for even distribution. Do the same with the mustard, and salt and pepper, aiming again for even distribution.
Heat the peanut oil in a large non-stick frying pan over a medium heat. When the oil is hot, put in the salmon, flesh side down. Cook for two minutes precisely, then turn. They will need anything from three to eight minutes more cooking, depending on how you like your salmon and the thickness of the fillets. The skin of the fish will be deeply browned and very crisp - delicious for those who like it.
When the fillets are done, put them on heated plates and sprinkle over the remaining ginger. Serve immediately with steamed potatoes and a green vegetable.
IF we need pulses and rich leaves like spinach which are full of iron, then let's combine them in this deliciously complex way, in a dish called Allo Sfenaj, from Claudia Roden's wonderful A Book of Middle-Eastern Food. I think I have cooked this fabulous stew more than any other dish from the book, and if the combination seems initially strange, do try it and you will be convinced. Use good Agen prunes, from France.
Spinach with Black
Eyed Beans and Prunes
140g (4oz) black-eyed beans or dried red beans
1 large onion, coarsely chopped
2-3 tablespoons oil
120g (4oz) pitted prunes half-teaspoon turmeric
1 teaspoon cinnamon
Pepper
Salt
1kg (2lb) spinach
Soak the beans in water for an hour. Fry the onion in oil until golden in a large saucepan. Add the prunes and the drained beans, cover with water, add spices and pepper and cook until the beans are tender (from half to one hour) and the water much reduced, adding salt when the beans have softened. Wash the spinach and remove thick stems. Put it in the pan and cook, turning it over and stirring, for about 10 minutes, until the spinach is done.