Author’s Fitness Mission to China : An Alternative Menu for Health-Conscious Travelers

When Harriet Roth packed her bags for Hong Kong recently, she tucked jars of herbs and spices among her clothing. Along with the seasonings she wasn’t sure she could find in Asian markets, Roth took her 18 years of experiences as a cooking teacher, nutrition counselor and former director of the Pritikin Longevity Center Cooking School.

She packed copies of her cookbook “Deliciously Low” (New American Library: $17.50 hardback, $7.95 paperback) along with one of the strongest dietary willpowers to be found among cooking professionals.

The reason for the unusual excess baggage was Roth’s mission. She had been invited by Holiday Inn International Asia/Pacific to travel from her Los Angeles home to Hong Kong, Singapore and Peking bringing along her expertise in developing healthful upscale recipes to share with the executive chefs of the 25-hotel chain. The goal was to develop an alternative menu for health-conscious travelers.

The idea started late last year when See Foon Koppen, a vice president of marketing for the chain, was in San Francisco browsing in a bookstore and came across Roth’s book. Because her husband had recently been advised by his doctor to make some serious dietary changes and because her mother was diabetic, she brought copies of the book back to Hong Kong and instructed a cook at home and hotel chefs to serve her husband and mother only the salt-, cholesterol- and sugar-free recipes from the book.

Koppen and her husband, also a hotel executive, were convinced they had found what they needed to complete a fitness program that includes gym equipment, in-room jump ropes and trampolines and shoes and clothing guests can borrow to jog on routes mapped out for them in a fitness brochure.

“I got a call, out of the blue I thought,” Roth said last week, sorting through a pile of clippings and photographs from the trip. “Someone asked me if I could fly up to San Francisco to meet with Mrs. Koppen.

“We had lunch and a few weeks later I was in Hong Kong to begin six weeks of consulting with chefs from all over Asia.”

Roth, who has a degree in foods and nutrition and studied cooking in Europe with Simone Beck and Roger Verge, changed the way she cooked when her own husband developed coronary problems seven years ago. A teacher specializing in French and Italian cookery at the time, Roth writes in her book “I could no longer reconcile myself to teaching people how to prepare food that did not contribute to their optimum health. But I still believed food must taste as good.”

Out of that attitude developed a style she called “cooking with what’s left.” And from her new style grew the book, published in 1983 and now in its fifth printing.

“I thought teaching experienced chefs my way of cooking would be a roll of the dice,” she said, “but I feel so strongly about what I do, I was sure I could work with them and at least teach them about good nutrition. Still, I was apprehensive. I knew my subject, but these were fine chefs and their reputation was on the line when they put this food out on the tables.”

Roth and the first group of eight chefs had only 10 days to develop a menu for a special mdedia luncheon introducing the new menu.

For an hour each morning Roth would lecture on nutrition, combining the principles of the U.S. Dietary Guidelines with her stricter interpretations of a healthful diet. The rest of the day would be spent cooking, both from her book and recipes devised by the chefs. Roth would follow the chefs around, jotting down every ingredient, their methods and cooking times.

Comments, Approval

At lunch she would sit each day at the chefs table while the sous- chefs would bring in recipes for her comment and approval.

Spare hours were spent prowling around markets in search of Asian alternatives to the American ingredients Roth normally used in her cooking here. “There was long-life skim milk, they had yogurt, apple juice concentrate (to replace sugar), brown rice, wild rice, a wonderful selection of fresh produce, something called kibble wheat and a low-fat cheese called quark. And we were able to order a low-sodium vegetable seasoning and low-salt, low-sugar whole grain breakfast cereal from Australia.”

On the ninth day everyone worked into the night perfecting their recipes.

It paid off. The day of the luncheon tables were set with sugar bowls, butter dishes, cream pitchers and salt shakers masked off with red tape. The 125 luncheon guests were served fresh apple and celery salad with assorted French greens, fresh pea soup, whole wheat crepes stuffed with fresh salmon ragout, three fresh fruit sorbets, individual whole wheat lasagna with marinara sauce, orange glazed Cornish hens over wild rice with three fresh vegetables and lemon cheese pie with fresh strawberry sauce. Total calories for the seven courses: less than 800. Guests could also indulge in a selection of whole grain breads and rolls and Champagne mixed with peach puree.

When the guests were gone, Roth was delighted but relentless. That night the chefs had homework to do.

“I knew after the luncheon that they understood the whole concept of what I was trying to teach. So I asked each of them to come in the next morning with an original recipe.”

The results were more than gratifying to Roth and some have already made their debut on hotel menus: chicken curry and cauliflower with coriander soups; turkey and orange and tuna vinaigrette salads; a chicken terrine cooked in red and green peppers, chicken braised in vegetable and orange sauce, chicken breast in melon and curry sauce, poached fish with mango sauce, steamed snapper with yogurt-horseradish sauce, chicken patties with onion and mustard sauce; apricot-peach chiffon pie, quark cheese strudel, brown rice pudding with pear and banana mousse.

Roth spent another 10 days working with the group in Hong Kong then two weeks in Singapore and one week in Peking with two more groups of chefs, adapting menus and recipes to the available ingredients in each chef’s locale.

By the end of the trip, Roth had met with 19 chefs from 10 hotels in eight different Asian cities. They represented more than six different nationalities including, a chef from New Orleans, LeRoy Thomas, executive sous- chef at the Park-View Holiday Inn scheduled to open June 1 in Singapore.

“We were very happy to see each other,” Roth remembered.

Roth says each of the six hotels that have already implemented the “gourmet health” menu selections (the rest will start before summer) are reporting serving from 60 to 100 of the meals each day. And, she says, they are getting repeat customers and local business people who are ordering from the menu.

As it turned out, Roth didn’t need to pack those jars of spices in her suitcase. All she needed was her knowledge about how to cook deliciously without sugar, salt and fat, her talent for developing recipes with “what’s left” and what’s available and her knack for teaching experienced chefs a new way to cook -- and eat.

“Three of the chefs began following the regime in my book when I arrived and when I left they all reported feeling better than usual,” Roth said. “As skeptical as the chefs were before I came, they were enthusiastic when I left.”