Healthy Place to Die (7 page)

“In recent years, chefs have been challenged by the addition of a new dimension. No longer is a meal expected only to look good and taste good: it must be healthy. Some dishes were immediately struck off the cooking list because they were too high in calories or fats. Pork was among the first to go.”

It was a good start, I conceded. A controversial topic was being introduced now.

“Containing less protein and more fat than other meats, pork requires cooking at a hundred and sixty degrees Fahrenheit minimum to kill the trichinae, the bacteria that cause trichinosis. This rule was not always observed in the past and thus gave pork a bad name.

“Today, lean cuts of pork are similar in both fat content and dietary cholesterol to chicken breasts. They contain greater amounts of thiamin and other vitamins and by minimizing the amount of oil used for cooking, you can eat pork without guilt.”

Leighton indicated two pork tenderloins before him. “I am going to barbecue these in a Chinese style, with garlic sauce,” he said. “The oven is already preheated at three hundred and fifty degrees, and this baking pan is lined with foil.” He whisked together hoisin sauce, garlic, ketchup, sugar, and soy sauce. He put the tenderloins in the pan, coated them with this mixture, and put them in the oven.

“I am going to cook these for thirty-five minutes,” he said, “but before the class started I put two identical tenderloins in. These will be due out in five minutes, and in the meantime I am going to make the garlic sauce.” He stirred together soy sauce, minced garlic, vinegar, sugar, and a sprinkle of Tabasco sauce, then warmed the mixture in a small pan, took the precooked tenderloins out of the oven, and placed them on a cutting board. He cut them diagonally across the grain into thin slices and poured the sauce over them.

“Come and try them,” he said invitingly, and there was a rush. “Only about one hundred and thirty calories an ounce and two and a half grams of fat.” When the pork had vanished, he said, “Now, while the other tenderloins are cooking. I’m going to show you how to make a typical Chinese accompaniment in order to serve a well-rounded meal. This is stir-fried vegetables with noodles.”

He took onions, broccoli, leeks, and carrots and steamed them for two or three minutes. He put noodles into boiling water—the so-called rice stick-noodles also known as rice vermicelli—and drained them when they were tender, which took about ten minutes. For a sauce, he mixed soy, Bourbon whiskey, and chicken broth with cornstarch, sugar, salt, and sesame oil. In a small pan, he sauteed ginger and garlic with curry powder and turmeric. He added the vegetables and the noodles and stirred.

“Bring plates,” he told the class as he opened the oven and began to slice the pork tenderloins. “This time, you can taste the whole dish.”

The presentation was a great success, and I told him so. He gave me a curt nod and turned his attention to Millicent Manners. The soap opera actress was giving him starry-eyed looks, and their conversation was carried on in lowered tones. It did not sound as if they were talking about food.

The tastes of barbecued pork tenderloin, garlic sauce, and a mixture of noodles and vegetables had been delicious, but they had given me an appetite. I was early for lunch and selected a cheese-and-onion salad, a specialty from the Appenzell in the northwestern corner of Switzerland, where Austria and Lake Constance come together. Maintaining continuity, I followed it with
siedfleischteller,
a type of beef stew from the same region. Helmut Helberg came to the table, perspiring slightly. “The underground sauna,” he explained, “it’s wonderful. Makes you perspire and lose all those body poisons. The trouble is I can’t stop!”

“Do you find it helps the thought processes?” I asked. “Did you get all kinds of great ideas for the reformation of the supermarket?”

“A few,” he admitted cautiously. I supposed the grocery business must be susceptible to industrial espionage in the same way as many others.

He scanned the menu and sighed. “So many choices.”

“I went for Swiss dishes,” I said, and told him what they were. He accepted my recommendation on the Appenzeller beef stew but wanted a more substantial dish to start. He stayed true to national tastes and ordered a warm potato salad with chopped onion, ham, green pepper, and mustard.

“Does the territory covered by your supermarket chain include Switzerland?” I asked.

“Certainly.”

“I was thinking that it’s a pity Swiss chefs are not better known outside their own country.”

“That’s true,” he agreed. He had ordered a glass of red wine. It arrived and he sipped and nodded approval.

“Through your business, you must know some of these chefs. Fredy Girardet has become almost a legend, but perhaps it is his eminence that has kept other Swiss chefs from being recognized.”

“Martin Dalsass at the Sant’abbondio in the Ticino is outstanding,” he said promptly. “He is also a good friend of mine. Then there is Waldis Ratti. He has the Ristorante Rodolfo on the shore of Lake Maggiore. Horst Peterman in Zurich is growing quickly in stature, and so is Hans Stucki in Basel.”

“Outside of Switzerland, we don’t hear enough of these names,” I said. “Peterman is becoming well known, though.”

We discussed Swiss cooking and the influence on it of German cooking, but when the food arrived, Helmut gave full attention to it and slowed down in his conversation.

As we left, I encountered Marta Giannini, resplendent in a burgundy-colored dress of some shimmering material. “Have you tried the mud baths here yet?” she asked.

“Not yet, but they’re high on my list,” I told her.

“I just love the mud baths at the Gellert in Budapest,” she said, using those magnificent eyes as if cameras were focused on her from all angles. “The Romans began the tradition there, you know. It was the Turks, though, who converted them into the way they are today.”

“I don’t know how old these are,” I confessed. “The Romans were certainly in this region. But I’m sure the mud is new.”

“Are you taking a class this afternoon?”

“Only a short one at four o’clock.”

“Then perhaps I’ll see you there.” The luminous eyes were irresistible. I agreed.

T
HE ENTRANCE TO THE
mud baths was dark from the outside, but that was a trick of the glittering sun. Inside, the bath was lit with bulbs like giant pumpkins that gave off a soft natural light. A winding path led inward and soon merged into a vast subterranean palace with a low roof of natural glistening rock.

Bronze fittings on the lamps gave it a period look, but the earth-brown marble of the mud bath was clearly modern. In it, rich brown mud heaved and bubbled, sending clouds of steam wafting into the humid atmosphere.

One of the lovely blond staff girls was on duty. I had not seen her before. This one looked like the star of the Olympic swimming team. Her tiny bikini allowed no space for a name badge, and she introduced herself with, “I’m Celia.”

In the simmering bath of mud, three vaguely human shapes could be distinguished, wallowing gently like grotesque sea creatures. I had to reach the side of the bath before I could identify a couple from Dublin whom I had met in the restaurant. I turned my attention to the third figure and was just able to make out the features of Marta Giannini. Her eyes sparkled out of the thick gelatinous mass that parted reluctantly as she raised a hand to wave.

I slid in beside her. It was different from what I had expected. Instead of getting into the mud, all I could do at first was lie on top. It was denser and heavier than it looked, like a mass of unbaked pumpernickel dough. Gradually I began to settle, sinking very, very slowly. Marta laughed, and the sound tinkled and echoed from the low ceiling.

“Don’t think about your nose itching! If it does, you will want to rub it and then you have a problem!”

“I won’t think about it.” It was an impossible promise. “You’re an old hand at this mud bath venture, aren’t you?”

“I love them,” she said gleefully.

I floated for a while. I thought I was sinking deeper very slowly but my face was still above the mud.

“This isn’t just ordinary mud,” Marta said. “The mineral water from the natural springs deep down makes it different, gives it medicinal powers. It’s wonderful for the skin.”

“Does anybody ever sink?” I asked.

“The mineral water being pumped in has a very strict temperature control on it. That keeps the mud at just the right consistency.”

Right for what? I wondered. It was too dense to swim in and too thin to float on. I moved my arms and it was frustratingly difficult. I kicked but nothing happened. The Irish couple was climbing out, saying something to Marta. She smiled and I thought she nodded but the movement was minimal. Celia led the couple into a shower cubicle and handed them white terry-cloth robes. They left, and Marta called to me, “Still afloat?”

“I think so. Is my skin peeling yet?”

She laughed, expert enough in mud bathing to prevent mud from slipping into her mouth. I lay there, immobile. It was like being suspended in space and after the passage of an indeterminate number of minutes, suspended in time too.

A loud piercing noise broke my reverie. It was a while before I recovered full consciousness, and I became aware that the blond girl was talking to Marta. The piercing noise stopped, and I saw the cell phone in the blond Celia’s hand. Marta moved slowly, slowly to the side of the pool. She pulled herself half out and turned to me. Venus arising from the mud bath, I thought.

“My agent and an executive from Universal are on a conference call,” she said. “They want to talk to me about a new part. I’ll have to take it in my room.”

“Good luck,” I wished her sincerely. Celia helped her out and took her to the shower. Marta gave me a wave as she disappeared. Celia came back to the edge of the bath. “I have to go and look at the temperature. I’ll be right back.”

“All right,” I managed to say.

“I’m not supposed to leave you alone,” she said, “but I’ll only be a minute or two.”

She walked away with a sway of the hips that was so different from any of those I had seen before. I went back into my mud world.

I was exfoliating. My skin was coming off in huge patches. Soon I was going to be a hunk of unprotected flesh, grotesque and unrecognizable. I would submerge in a hot steamy swamp and be lost.

Consciousness began to seep back slowly. Relief flooded my mind. I couldn’t see any of my skin, but I knew it was not peeling. That had been just one of the fears implanted easily because of my negligible knowledge of mud baths. I was not submerging either—that was just another fear that …

But I
was
submerging. My nose and mouth were barely above the brown ooze. It
was
hot now, hotter than when I had gone in and so steamy that I could hardly see the stone ceiling. I tried to move my arms and legs but it was not possible.

The steamy air parted as a figure came through it, coming into focus like an image at a séance. It must be Celia returning … but no. The blond girls looked very much alike, but surely this wasn’t Celia. The steam swirled, the face came and went. I tried to gasp out a plea for help, but I could hear no words emerging. She was looking down at me. Why didn’t she help me? I must have passed out from the heat, and when my eyelids had struggled apart I was first aware of the effort to move them and then of the fact that the face had gone.

I was aware again of the temperature of the mud. It was getting hotter by the minute. It must have been acting as a soporific, for I drifted off into a hazy world of only one sensation—heat. It was lulling my brain into a stupor, and even the effort of trying to formulate a thought was too much.

Through the haze of unreality, I had the panicky feeling that I was sinking deeper and deeper, slow though it was. My limbs did not exist, or if they did I no longer had any control over them. Breathing was getting more difficult, I suddenly realized. The moist air was heavy and cloying and my lungs did not want to make the effort. The mud was seeping into my ears, and I thought I could hear a faint glug-glug of bursting bubbles. But the sound was attenuated, as if stretched by the heaving mud.

The awareness of the need for survival was still there, though. A tiny stirring in the back of my mind was urging me to do something, anything, to escape from this world of heat and humidity where the least movement required massive effort, and time seemed to be moving at a cosmic crawl.

The thought crept in as to whether I would ever come back from such a world.

I had no recollection of forcing my eyes open and yet another face was filling my vision. Was I dreaming? Was I still in a universe of increasingly unbearable heat? Was that the sound of a muffled voice, calling out incomprehensible words?

Like successive shots in a film, actuality returned. First steamy white air, then undulating thick mud all around me, then the marble edge of the pool. Marta was trying to pull me out of the mud, and it was reluctant to let me go. My head emerged, and even the heavy humid air felt cool by comparison. The heat still enveloped the rest of my body, and in a moment of sheer irrelevance I resolved to review the matter of lobsters and boiling water.

I could see Marta clearly now. She was struggling to pull me free of the clinging mud, but she was not strong enough. I was slipping back but recovering just enough to be trying to kick and struggle when a blond vision appeared. She and Marta heaved me out as if beaching a large and exhausted fish. I flopped on to the cool marble.

The blond girl was strong and muscular. She half carried me into the shower cubicle, and fresh clear water had never felt so good. She handed me a plastic mug of sparkling water with slices of cucumber, chunks of lemon, and ice. It tasted wonderful, and she filled the mug again from a large pitcher. I dropped into the nearest chair.

Marta was at my side, looking concerned. She was wearing a white terrycloth robe, spattered with mud from her attempts to pull me out. “Drink some more,” said the blond girl, filling my mug again. “It will replace the moisture. You must have lost a lot.”