Ski Food

Eat To Live: Can't we get good ski food?
2006-01-11 12:19 (New York)


By JULIA WATSON
After six days' skiing in the Rockies, I've come to the conclusion it's the
most fattening form of exercise there is.
According to HealthStatus.com, 60 minutes of downhill skiing will burn 495
calories off a person weighing 125 pounds. That sounds heartening, given that --
with the extortionate cost of lift tickets -- skiers are generally impelling
themselves up and down the mountain about six hours a day.
But, as the Web site will tell you, "To lose one U.S. pound (.454 kg), you must
burn 3,500 more calories than you take in as food." And that's where the
trouble starts.
Come off the ski runs for lunch at a mountain restaurant, and what is on offer?
A sampling at Vail describes a pretty universal American ski resort menu.
Fresh-cooked options are foot-long hot dogs or burgers in rolls with the
texture of wall insulation, offered with fries. From warm holding tanks come
bottled marinara-soused pastas, chili and some kind of soup. On heated serving
circles lie wedges of flabby pizza.
The fresh option is a salad bar with the usual chain-eatery mix of canned beans
and vegetables, chopped leaves and fruit chunks, to dredge with thick processed
dressings -- a small bowl for $5 before tax. The exotic is covered by the
"Wraps" section, which produces something akin to a filled diaper, except that
one version is green.
You'll need a bottled water or soda to swill any of these delicacies down,
forcing the price of your tray into orbit somewhere around $8.
But more costly are the calories. Those six-inches-wide-at-the-crust pizza
slices probably weigh in at around 600 calories. The bulging wraps with their
guacamole, sour cream, cheese, chicken and a drift of chopped salad must be at
least a solid 500. This is guesswork, I admit. But just looking at the stuff
makes you feel bloated.
After three consecutive ski lunches, you come off the mountain screaming for
something that tastes fresh and pure in the mouth. The après ski offerings of
buffalo wings flopping loosely in their hot-sauced socks of pale skin don't cut
it.
Why can't we get ski food like they serve in the Alps? Whether you're skiing in
the French or Italian mountains, or those of Austria or Germany, the resorts
all know what pleases their skiers and what will feed them best and most
healthily.
In these ski lodges, lunch is assumed to be part of the day's enjoyment and is
cooked accordingly. It isn't a fueling interval. The meals, though they can be
eaten with due dispatch, aren't cooked as fast food. Thought has gone into what
will leave an eater who has come in from the cold satisfied but not slothful.
Menus are given proper consideration and enjoyed with the same.
Wherever you go, you'll see Raclette on the menu. It's a plate of melted cheese
scraped from half a wheel held to heat that you eat with small freshly boiled
potatoes in their skins, pickled gherkins (cornichons), tiny pickled onions and
salad.
There are piles of real -- not processed -- sausages, plates of local cold cuts
like salamis, ham and wind-dried beef.
There's Röschti, a kind of griddled potato latke, or cheese tartlets, both
eaten with fresh green salad; dishes of smoked pork, sausage and sauerkraut
served with mashed potato; veal stews.
Toasted sandwiches like Croque Monsieur that marry slices of cheese and ham, or
grilled cheese on artisan toast, are made fresh on the spot.
To do Vail justice, there is one spot on the front of the mountain you should
head for. The lodge at Wildwood grills smoked chickens to order and serves
great brisket and pulled pork (in dreadful buns), as well as scrumptious and
original thick soups. Bravo them.
The point of Alpen skiing food is it's good enough to eat at home. Try this
adapted version of Raclette. In Switzerland they have a machine not unlike an
electric toasted sandwich maker to produce it domestically. It's generally made
with mountain cheeses like Bagnes, Gomser or Belalp. However, you can more
easily buy a cheese that is called Raclette in good food markets.
-- With any of these, line a grill pan with foil, lay ¼-inch thick slices of
these cheeses on top and broil under high heat.
-- As soon as they melt, scrape them onto warm plates already set with a
serving of washed but unpeeled boiled potatoes. Yukon Gold or fingerlings are
best.
-- Eat with a salad of Butter or Boston lettuce, a dish of pickled onions and
gherkins on the side and lashings of freshly ground pepper and a good sea salt
like Maldon.
-- Alternatively, buy the hard Greek cheese, Kefalotiri, and put ¼ inch slices
in a hot and lightly oiled sauté pan. It will melt internally without running
all over the pan and hardening too fast.