NEWS for North Dakotans
Agriculture Communication, North Dakota State University
7 Morrill Hall, Fargo, ND 58105-5665

March 25, 1999

Prairie Fare: Now That's Italian ... and Simple

How many cookbooks do you have that feature a foreword written by a former U.S. president? I have one, Leone's Italian Cookbook, written by Gene Leone, son of the famous New York restaurateur "Mother Leone." The foreword comes from President Dwight D. Eisenhower.

But the foreword is not what sold me on the cookbook. Even more than the recipes, the photographs and the captions were the clinchers. One photo shows a corner of one of the restaurant's 13 artfully decorated rooms. The restaurant's seating capacity was 1,500, and Leone's would feed as many as 6,000 patrons on a busy night.

The art collection on display throughout Leone's was worth $250,000 in the 1950s. But I think I'd be more impressed by the kitchenkitchens, in all likelihood. A lot of stainless steel.

Gene sold the restaurant in 1959. At the time of the sale, his inventory of food included $125,000 worth of shrimp, which happens to be the subject of what I think is the cookbook's most interesting photo, one of women shelling shrimp. Part of the caption says, "It was no easy job, since our customers consumed about one ton of shrimp a night."

Now that's a hungry crowd.

I'll have to admit that I've made only a few of the recipes in the Leone cookbook. But the ones that I've made, I've made repeatedly. One I like is for a simple beet salad, which also includes garlic, anchovies (I omit these), olive oil, wine vinegar, and salt and pepper. The trick is incorporating the beets with the other ingredients while the beets are still warm.

Leone's Italian salad dressing is superb: a blend of olive oil and wine vinegar in a 3-to-1 ratio, about half again as much lemon juice as vinegar, one clove of minced garlic per half-cup of liquid, and salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste.

I've also made Leone's lasagne several times and once for a church crowd of 150. Chopped raisins are what give the lasagne's meat sauce a subtle sweetness. Well worth the effort in my estimation.

Yet Mother Leone's tomato sauce is anything but basic. The recipe calls for veal knuckles and beef bones. In contrast, the following tomato sauce recipe is simple yet sensationally authentic. Try it and you're likely to spend more time fantasizing about the Mediterranean than you will stewing about how hard you're working.

Simple Tomato Sauce
Yield: 6 servings (1 cup each)

Ingredients:
1 onion, diced
8 cloves garlic, minced
3 tablespoons olive oil
salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste
1 tablespoon dried thyme
1 teaspoon dried basil
½ medium carrot, finely shredded
2 (28-ounce) cans crushed tomatoes

Procedure:
Saute the onion and garlic in the olive oil over medium heat until onions become translucent, about 10 minutes. Season with salt and pepper, add the herbs and carrot and cook 5 minutes more. Add the tomatoes. Bring to a boil and reduce heat so that the sauce simmers slowly for one hour. Stir occasionally. Check seasoning and adjust with additional salt and pepper, if needed. Serve over your favorite pasta topped with a sprinkling of freshly grated Parmesan or Romano cheese.

What's Your Take on This, Julie?

Tomatoes were regarded as poisonous for centuries. When some adventuresome person decided to test his/her luck, tomatoes were found to be edible as well as delicious.

Recent research tells us that eating tomatoes, particularly processed tomatoes, may be one of the best things you can do for your health, particularly if you're male. According to a Harvard study, men who each week ate 10 or more servings of tomato-based foods such as tomato sauce or even ketchup had a one-third lower risk of developing prostate cancer than men who ate fewer than two servings a week.

What's the magic ingredient? It happens to be lycopene, a plant pigment in the carotenoid family that gives tomatoes their rich red color. Carotenoids and other antioxidants such as vitamins E and C and the mineral selenium have been shown to play a role in defending the body against free radicals, which are "vandals" that damage cells. Free radicals are linked with cancer, cardiovascular disease, arthritis, cataracts and aging.

Women should take note of this research as well. Other studies have shown a link between lycopene consumption and a delay in the growth of cancer cells in the breast, lung and uterus. Lycopene intake also has been shown to improve daily functions in the elderly.

Lycopenes from processed tomatoes seem to be more efficiently absorbed from sauce, paste or ketchup than from raw tomatoes, according to a researcher at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston. The processing seems to concentrate the amount of lycopene present and improve absorption.

Here's a chance to increase your lycopene intake. A one-cup serving of Simple Tomato Sauce is lycopene rich and contains 140 calories and 7 grams of fat. By using olive oil, you're following Italian tradition as well as keeping most of the fat in the monounsaturated form that has been shown to be most heart healthy. A serving also provides more than 80 percent of the daily recommendations for vitamins C and A (as carotenoids). And it tastes good too.

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Sources: Dean Hulse (701) 231-6136 and Julie Garden-Robinson (701) 231-7187

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