BMI, or body mass index, is the standard way that doctors calculate a person’s total amount of body fat vs. the ideal weight for their height. It’s quite a simple calculation of weight divided by height, but its outcome has great importance for ones’ health. Apparently, the ideal BMI is 21 which, I suspect, was the age at which my BMI was last at that number, and at which age I accurately resembled the hollow-cheeked, lank-haired student that I was. A BMI above 28 means, among other things embarrassment & shame at the beach, in clothes stores, and when faced with stairs, but more sinisterly, a greater likelihood of heart disease, strokes, kidney and liver disease, diabetes, and therefore, premature death. Chilling stuff, eh? Well, here’s the interesting thing, a BMI of 31 will have you officially categorized as obese, meaning that you can be some way shy of obesity and still be destined to cark it at an early age, which actually sucks quite badly when you think about it.

Anyway, if that hasn’t scared the sh!t out of you, and you still wish to put yourself through the frankly terrifying ordeal of calculating your BMI, the first thing you have to do is weigh yourself — something I hadn’t done in at least four years, owing to the absence of a set of scales in my home, you see, not because I didn’t want to know how much heavier I had become. I want to be clear on this point.

So, on Monday of last week – after a reasonably active weekend, fortunately – I weighed myself in the locker room at the gym sporting nothing but a towel and a furrowed brow as I tinkered fruitlessly with the slider thingy to shave off a couple of extra ounces. 194lbs. Exactly nine pounds heavier than the last time I was weighed, showing an average weight gain of 2lbs per year.

I wasn’t exactly overjoyed with this, but decided to proceed with the BMI experiment all the same. Here’s how it’s done:

• Take your weight in pounds and multiply it by 703.
• Divide the result by your height in inches.
• Then, divide the result again by your height in inches.

For example:

• My weight in pounds: 194 x 703
• The result: 136,382 / 73 (my height in inches)
• The 2nd result: 1,868.25 / 73 inches = My BMI is25.

Yes, it was anticlimactic in the end, I’ll admit. But, as with anything to do with health, it’s a great relief to find out that you’re not about to drop dead like you might have feared – at least, it seems, not from being overweight… yet. That said, there are a lot of scientists who dispute the usefulness of BMI in indicating a person’s ideal weight because it makes no consideration of an individual’s build. For instance, a heavily-muscled, yet ripped, man of medium height might have a BMI exceeding 30 but is unlikely to be at as great a risk of a heart attack as a taller person with only light muscle mass and a large gut.

And, here is the point, or at least I think so, because four years ago when I last checked, I weighed in at 185lbs. At that time, I was pretty skinny – it’s true, just ask my wife, but using the method above, my BMI would still have been 24.5. To achieve the ideal BMI of 21, I would have to weigh 165lbs or less. I stand six feet and one inch tall and am of medium-build (typical British build, if you will). So, I ask you, is 165lbs an ideal weight for someone of my height? I’d be nothing but skin and bones at that weight, some thirty pounds lighter than I am currently, and 20lbs less than when I was actually skinny. It all kind of sounds insane to me. What do you think? Should I attempt to lose those 30lbs? Should I even care about my BMI? Or, is it, in fact, just another potential source of paranoia in a world where everything you eat has some sort of warning or health risk? Being alive is starting to seem like a recipe for a sticky end…

Basically, in a “new” commercial for Wendy’s (you know Wendy’s, right? It’s a fast food joint) they try to tell us that “it’s waaaaaay better than fast food, it’s Wendy’s”. Do they think we’re all that much of a bunch of idiots? This is the most ridiculous form of advertising I’ve ever seen. If it works, I’ll believe that there’s nothing advertising and marketing can’t do. Check it out here:

But, I think the part of the commercial I like the best was the quote:

“You know what they say, if you don’t know what it is, don’t eat it!” – is there anything you’ve ever eaten before you knew what it was?

Who ARE these people!? Since when is this a horrible thing to do? I mean, check out my post on my years eating the Philadelphia breakfast favorite, scrapple and pork roll. I didn’t actually know what it was, but I still ate it! In fact, how can you try new foods if you know what everything is? Does this commercial make you as irritated as me?

SEE OTHER INTERESTING POSTS RELATED TO THIS ONE:

• European Union to Stop Junk Food Ads – Why Not America?
• Free Lunch for Inner-City Kids – If It’s Free Does It Have To Be Crap?

Indeed, is even equating the blue haze of cigarette smoke in a tiled and mirrored cafe with French-ness anything more than just a cheesy cliche?

While we examine the state of our national stereotyping and the extent of our nostalgia, let us know what you think.

For another reflective look at French health-consciousness, click here.

We like spicy food, we do, and we eat it quite often – all kinds – thai, indian, korean, mexican, caribbean, colombian, and yes, it almost always does painful and weird things to our lower digestive tracts as well. We read that the active ingredient in hot peppers, capsaicin, (from the latin name for the fruit – yes fruit – capsicum) releases endorphins when ingested so the painful, mouth-on-fire feelings you get are offset by a sense of pleasure, all of which is peculiarly masochistic. Indeed, a recent MSN (ugh) online article with facts from well-known UK supermarket chain TESCO tells us that,

“If you can stand the heat, then chili peppers contain an anti-inflammatory substance called capsaicin and has been linked with pain relief associated with conditions such as arthritis. Chilies are also thought to protect your heart, fight infection thanks to large amounts of vitamins A and C.”

We also know that certain peppers are more or less friendly than others – jalapenos (nice and friendly), serranos (slightly more firey but mostly fine), cayennes (pretty darn spicy, be careful), habaneros (exceedingly spicy, use carefully and sparingly), and because of that we’ve read a lot (okay some) about how to handle the spiciest of peppers (latex gloves; no contact with eyes, mouth, soft organs etc.; remove seeds and ribs to reduce spicyness), all of which we practice more or less to the letter of the law. However, the answer to the thorny issue of being able to tell just how spicy a particular pepper is has remained elusive

Culinary giant Jacques Pepin always tastes a little bit of his peppers before cooking with them so he knows how hot they are, but is that always a good idea? We recently bought some Jamaican Hot Peppers, aka scotch bonnet peppers, which are similar in strength to habaneros. Some people say the jamaican ones are fruitier than the habanero but I can’t tell much of a difference, they’re both dangerously hot to me. Anyway, my wife used half of one of these in a vietnamese noodle dish she made the other night and turned out very deliciously, and I used the other half to add a little (and use the word little by way of understatement) piquancy to an onion gravy I made to accompany some veal sausages and gorgonzola polenta I made the other day. I did not taste the pepper beforehand to judge its power and so found out when we were eating that its flavor was a serious component of the dish. That said, the heat wasn’t over-powering and searing, it was quite subtle and gave the gravy a very enjoyably warm after-taste.

So, now that we know these peppers are of the militant variety, and that they should be used sparingly, what do we do with the other 12 peppers in the package before they go mouldy? Your suggestions are welcome but I’ll need them soon!

Check out some of our other food commentary articles!

Before I say anything more, I should make it clear that I had never been to the famous San Gennaro festival that is running through this weekend in Manhattan’s Little Italy before Wednesday night, and that during our visit, my cellphone was thieved, perhaps leaving an extra special bad taste in my mouth. I’ll also make it clear that we spent three weeks in Italy this summer – though we did not visit Naples or any of southern Italy – and we had an amazing time and feel pretty well-informed about mainstream modern Italian culture. My wife is also a proud third-generation Italian-American from Philadelphia, so I’m also pretty well-versed in East Coast Italian-American culture. So, that said, allow me, if you will, to tell you why I didn’t find the much-heralded San Gennaro festival such a great cultural experience after all.

The sausage and peppers sandwich we ate was good – too much onion, and not enough sausage and peppers, but good bread and basically, very tasty. I’m blaming the lack of peppers and sausage on the generally parsimonius nature of street vendors, but I was pleased to be served by beefy looking Italian-Americans with a characteristic gruffness that I enjoy. This, I thought, is what I came for – something authentically Italian-American – a kind of balls-out, overblown street food-fair where everybody talks with their mouths full and with grease on their chins. I wasn’t expecting anything authentically Italian because I know that wherever immigrants have settled across the world their attempts to recreate aspects of their former lives and homes are reminscent but never exactly alike the old country and I know this from personal experience. However much I think Brooklyn is redolent of certain Victorian neighborhoods in England, it’s always going to be Brooklyn and not Fulham or Highgate. But I was enthused by the food, the sheer number of zeppole and cannoli stands was impressive, and the smell of frying onions and sausage filled the air, even if for $6 I had expected more than one small piece of sausage. The crowds were mightily impressive too – I had expected it to be quiet on a Wednesday evening – but it was busy enough that it made me glad not to have come on a weekend when it would have been horrific with kids dropping ice creams everywhere and swarms of teenagers roving around in intimidating mobs.

But here’s the kicker, and watch out readers who read last week’s post on the Italian strike over pasta, you may find what follows peculiar, or at least at odds with my self-proclaimed admiration for the upkeepers of tradition. You see, what bothered me about San Gennaro, apart from the depressing chintzy sideshows that charged $5/dart and then gave away the world’s most awful teddy bear prizes, was a general feeling of decay that pervaded the festival. Not only were all the people working the stands kind of haggard and down-on-their-luck looking, but Little Italy itself is depressing because it’s a neighborhood with absolutely none of the vibrancy it is famous for. A few red-sauce Italian restaurants and round-bellied people on street corners going “ay, gabagool!” to each other does not make a neighborhood. It’s become a kind of film-set or theme park, with nothing really of substance remaining, and holding a festival for the patron saint of Naples in a neighborhood which is predominantly Chinese is even stranger than there being Ecuadorian food vendors selling mozzarepas and Colombians touting flame-grilled steaks.

Those of you who watched the final series of the Sopranos (and advance apologies to those who haven’t seen it yet for ruining at least one episode) will know that there is an ongoing war between the New Jersey and New York mobs, and that the New York mob are often pictured in their restaurants in Little Italy. There is one very telling scene in which one of the New York mob gets whacked while his companion is left untouched. The companion then starts hurriedly walking away from the scene through crowds of people. The scene closes with this guy looking frantic as a tour bus passes him with the guide saying something like, “to your left is Little Italy. It used to cover 30 blocks but is now little more than one street, three blocks in length, having been swallowed up by neighboring Chinatown.”

The point that scene made to me is one of demographics. Italian immigrants and their descendants are still present in great numbers throughout the north-east, but are being overtaken in their traditional neighborhoods by newer and more numerous groups like the Chinese and various Latino populations. This is exactly what I saw at San Gennaro – the last gasp of a once-great and homogenous group of immigrants – and it was depressing. I have deep respect for people who keep traditions alive but my San Gennaro experience left me with the impression that it was only the tradition that was left and none of the substance, particularly when the woman selling “I love guidos” t-shirts turned out to be Canadian and our sausage and peppers vendor was from New Jersey.

But what do you think? Am I unfairly maligning a strong and proud tradition that has a real future in New York City, or do you think New York’s Italian traditions are dying out? Before you answer you might consider reading this recent article in the New York Times.

CHECK OUT SOME OTHER POSTS RELATED TO THIS ONE:

• San Gennaro Festival, Little Italy, NYC – Ain’t What it Used to Be (Girl’s Version)
• FETTUCCINE FRA’DIAVOLO WITH CRAB AND SHRIMP
• FRITO MISTO DI MARE (FRIED MIXED SEAFOOD AND VEGGIES)
• Striking Over Pasta?
• PERFECT BROCCOLI DI RAPE/RAPINI
• SAUSAGE AND PEPPER SANDWICHES
• In Defence of Sandwiches (White House Subs, Atlantic City)

Now that you have the background of the event I can tell you a bit about my experience. The first time I went 5 years ago it was basically the same at it was 2 days ago – a genuine cheese-fest. I felt like I was walking down the boardwalk in Wildwood, NJ! But, I later learned I should have felt like I was walking down the boardwalk in Sleezeside Seaside Heights, NJ which, if you don’t know, is basically a mirror image of the Wildwood boardwalk. The reason for this, we were told, is that many of the vendors at the festival also own stores in Sleezeside. Just to paint a picture for you, the festival (and the boardwalk) is a nice mix of iron-on t-shirt shops (see pics), pizza/zeppoli restaurants, crappy, ‘disposable’ clothing shops and old-school arcades where you can attempt to win an ugly, highly flammable stuffed animal. In fact, within the first 2 minutes walking through the festival, Jonny was swindled by a woman manning a game booth who just kept handing him darts to throw and then told him his ‘game’ cost $35… right.

The one thing that people get excited for at the San Gennaro festival is the food – mainly the Sausage and Peppers. My grandmom made her sausage and peppers different from the ones at the festival which are just grilled with some oil and put in a nice hero roll (Grandma’s recipe to follow). The Italian sausage was delish and spicy but the guys working the grill were a bit shy on the peppers (in fact there were barely any left to give us). The other thing that was interesting about the festival was the presence of Mexican vendors. Now, believe me, I LOVE Mexican food, but at an Italian festival? If you put mozzerella cheese in an arepa it doesn’t automatically make it an Italian treat… right? It would’ve made more sense if there were Chinese vendors because Little Italy in NYC is really no longer – it is more like Little Italy/Chinatown. The whole thing kind of left a strange taste in my mouth and made me wonder what the original San Gennaro festivals were like.

The night at San Gennaro ended on a bad note as we discovered that Jonny’s crappy ‘came-free-with-the-plan’ cell phone was stolen from the side of his bag. It used to be thought that the festival was actually planned by the mob so maybe it was inside job. I hope they can even resell that piece of sh$t for more than 2 bucks!

All in all it was an interesting night. Not quite what we were hoping for, but still a Northeastern cultural event that I probably will not be attending again.

In memory of my lovely grandma Anna Norcia, I offer you her recipe for Sausage and Peppers. Very different from the one at San Gennaro but, in my opinon, much more delicious. Note that the original really calls for no measurements of ingredients. You kind of have to ‘get your Italian-mama’ on and just keep tasting till it tastes good. I tried my best to give measurements, but I would still continue to taste to see if you think it needs more ‘ummmph’. Enjoy!

ANNA’S ‘MAKE A LOAD FOR THE GRADUATION PARTY’ SAUSAGE & PEPPERS

Ingredients:

• Spicy Italian Sausage Links (2 lbs.)
• white wine (maybe 1/2 cup?)
• pork gravy (of course homemade would be great, but store-bought will be fine)
• green and red peppers (3 peppers total)
• 2 onions – sliced
• 2-4 cloves garlic (to taste)
• olive oil
• good quality hoagie/hero/sub rolls

1. Slice your sausage into 1-inch pieces. Brown.
2. Slice up your peppers (into strips) and onions (into thick slices) and saute until semi-soft then add chopped garlic. Don’t let them get too soft cause you want them to have a bit of chew.
3. Add the pork gravy and the wine and simmer on low for about a half hour.
4. Add some salt and pepper to taste.
5. Using a slotted spoon, spoon the sausage/pepper/onions into a sliced hoagie roll. Top with some of the gravy. (Note: You can also eat this on top of rice or noodles if you prefer).

Maybe this isn’t everyone’s cup of tea but it reminds me of home (as well as every family party we ever had!).

CHECK OUT SOME OTHER POSTS RELATED TO THIS:

• FETTUCCINE FRA’DIAVOLO WITH CRAB AND SHRIMP
• FRITO MISTO DI MARE (FRIED MIXED SEAFOOD AND VEGGIES)
• Striking Over Pasta?
• PERFECT BROCCOLI DI RAPE/RAPINI
• In Defence of Sandwiches (White House Subs, Atlantic City)

So maligned are pressure-cookers that it seems almost sacrilegious of a food blog like this, that likes to extol the virtues of fresh ingredients and traditional cooking methods, to even consider adding a recipe that calls for using one. Undaunted, here we are flaunting convention and defying the culinary thought-police once more with a recipe for red wine and herb braised lamb shanks made in our brand spanking new pressure-cooker. Of course, this is but an exaggeration. We’re perfectly happy to try almost any food and any cooking method, and since we’d got given a pressure-cooker for a wedding present, and yesterday was the first autumnal feeling day of the year, we thought, why not give it a try?

Pressure-cookers got their bad name originally for two principal reason. Firstly, they were fundamentally quite dangerous contraptions that were liable to explode and inflict either physical injury by launching scalding lumps of food at those in the kitchen, or enduring damage to your kitchen decor, or both. And secondly, because they tended to stew food, boil out it’s goodness and turn everything to mush. However, advances in design and therefore safety mean that modern pressure-cookers are regaining popularity for their astounding ability to cook dishes that normally take several hours, within forty minutes, while preserving the food’s goodness.

We were first put on to the beauty and convenience of the pressure-cooker by the humble, and vastly underrated, Jacques Pepin. On more than one episode of Fast Food, My Way, Monsieur Pepin gets out his trusty pressure cooker and makes a delicious braised dish (beef, mushrooms and pearl onions, from memory) in about half an hour, while describing how he was inspired by his mother who used to use her pressure cooker on weekday evenings to create a hearty family meal in under an hour. Apparently, Maman Pepin would chop the vegetables and meat while still in her coat, and then slap the lid on the pressure-cooker, while she did various other household chores, and while we used our pressure-cooker for the first time last night (a Sunday) we can definitely see how using it on a weekday meal in the winter would work extremely well.

Here’s the recipe for the dish we made, but there are probably hundreds of different things you could make, all of them inside forty minutes. Next time, we’re going to make lamb rogan josh curry.

Check out some of our other pressure-cooker recipes: Lemongrass Beef Shortribs, Korean Style Pork Ribs and Lebanese Fatteh Blahmeh.

Wine-Braised Lamb Shanks with Rosemary and Thyme in the Pressure-Cooker

1 1/2 – 2lbs lamb shanks (probably 2 shanks)
1 spanish onion, roughly diced
3-6 large garlic cloves, roughly chopped
1 large carrot, roughly diced
1/2 lb mushrooms (whichever kind you like) quartered, halved or whole depending on size
3 sprigs fresh rosemary
7-10 sprigs fresh thyme
1/4 bottle red wine (whatever you like drinking)
1pt chicken or vegetable stock
3 tbsp olive oil
4 tbsp flour
kosher salt
fresh ground black pepper

1. add a couple of good pinches of salt and pepper to the flour in a bowl and dredge lamb shanks until lightly coated.
2. add half the oil to pressure cooker at medium-high heat and brown lamb until colored well on all sides. Remove and set aside.
3. reduce heat to medium and add onion, carrot and mushrooms to pot and remaining oil. sautee until onions go opaque and carrots soften a bit and get sugary. add garlic and sautee for three more minutes.
4. add herbs and the lamb shanks back to the pot. turn heat back to high and add wine and about 3/4 of the stock.
5. bring liquid to a boil then place lid on pressure cooker. keep heat turned to high until pressure monitor shows maximum pressure has been reached, then follow manufacturer’s directions for keeping pressure at the right level for the right amount of time. On our model, I turned the heat to medium, and cooked it for 35 minutes.
6. release pressure and stand back until steam clears.
7. season to taste before plating, but be careful! I burned the sh!t out of my mouth tasting the sauce
8. Enjoy.

I served the lamb with a smoked provolone, cream and parsley polenta and wilted broccoli di rape, and it worked very well indeed. It’s worth noting that the whole thing tasted much better the following day, as is often the case with sauces – they improve until finally they go off.

Do any of you have good pressure-cooker recipes? And, if so, are you brave enough to come out and say that you too appreciate the noble pressure-cooker for what it is – a much-maligned invention of genius? Well, come on then, let’s have them!