While holiday food brings together families and friends, and inspires memories, it can also come with extra calories, sugar and fat. It can even pose health issues for those who fail to watch what they eat, or how much they pile on their plates.

Four of the state’s best-known chefs have their own ideas for eating well – and healthy – in this season of excess.

Chef Franklin Biggs

“I am more in favor of following what I remember as Julia Child’s sage advice: ‘Moderation, in all things, especially in moderation,’” said Chef Franklin Biggs, a former Birmingham restaurateur now teaching at Birmingham’s Sur La Table at the Summit shopping center. “So indulge, but don’t over indulge.”

Sometime around Christmas Eve, or maybe New Year’s Eve, Biggs will sit down to enjoy a hearty cassoulet of braised lamb and pork – maybe some duck and goose thrown in – all richly blended with slow-cooked white beans. He may even fry up a mess of traditional Jewish potato latkes, as well.

But Biggs recommends this strategy to counter the weightier items on your holiday menu: “Work on adding more great vegetables to the meals.”

Chef Chris Hastings

Chris Hastings, chef-owner of Birmingham’s Hot and Hot Fish Club and a 2012 James Beard Award winner, said he tries to use less butter and cream in recipes while pumping up healthier ingredients.

“Any time you substitute using raw or organic products, it’s a good choice,” he said. “You don’t have to give up flavor to eat in a healthy way. Butter or olive oil – it will not change the flavor.”

Avoiding heavy sauces and gravy as an accompaniment to poultry is another way to eat well and healthy. Instead, use a mixture of salt, pepper and herbs. “The flavor of the chicken is going to be the flavor of the chicken,” Hastings said.

Chef Haller McGee

Chef Haller Magee of Satterfield’s restaurant in Vestavia Hills admits he’s an unabashed fan of pork. “Fat is flavor,” he said. “There’s not much getting around it.”

But Magee said finding balance is the goal when he prepares a meal. “I keep the focus on the pig, but bring balance with the trimmings” he said.
Magee especially enjoys adding fresh vegetables to his meals during the holidays, and throughout the year. For New Year’s Eve, for example, he’s preparing a Caesar Salad using fresh kale, country ham and anchovies.

Alabama has good farms producing organically grown vegetables, Magee said. “This is a good season for turnips, mustards, collards, beets and radishes.” He also recommends using coconut oil as a healthy substitute in cooking.

Chef Leonardo Maurelli

Chef Leonardo Maurelli, executive chef at Central restaurant in downtown Montgomery, refers to himself as an Extra Virgin Olive Oil fanatic. “I use it almost exclusively,” he said. He also likes cooking with sesame oil and coconut oil.

Maurelli is not a pastry chef, so when it comes to sweets in this season, he prepares simple, tasty and creative alternatives that are also healthy, such as roasted plums in local honey and citrus juice, served over a slice of brioche.

“I like to roast fruits in honey and maybe use these with a light whipped cream. I also like to poach pears, sometimes in left-over coffee, honey and star anise – again maybe use some brioche and make small croutons to provide contrast, roasted nuts to add some depth, and call it a day.”

One thing all four chefs agree on: in this holiday season, the joy of cooking, and enjoying good food, represents something much bigger than the process that takes place in the kitchen.

“The true essence of food for holidays is the people you share it with, whether blood family, chosen family or great friends,” Biggs said. “That is the celebration.”