Seamus Mullen's Hero Food

The Next Iron Chef star and chef/owner of Tertulia talks about his illness and shares the foods that ease his rheumatoid arthritis symptoms

seamus mullen

F rom his acclaimed New York restaurant Boqueria to his finalist turn on The Next Iron Chef, Vermont-raised chef Seamus Mullen has spent his career exploring the flavors of international cuisines, in particular the cuisine of Spain, his first culinary love and the engine powering his newest restaurant, Tertulia. But when Mullen was diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis in his 30s, he began to look at food from a different angle, considering how the food he ate might help combat the excruciatingly painful symptoms of his disease.

In his new—and first—cookbook, Hero Food: How Cooking with Delicious Things Can Make Us Feel Better (Andrews McMeel Publishing, $35), the chef spotlights 18 ingredients he calls "hero foods." "I know there's no silver bullet, but I have discovered that some foods can make dramatic differences," he writes. These ingredients, from parsley and stone fruits to carrots and good eggs, have helped him cope with the pain.

Epicurious spoke to Chef Mullen about his disease, his favorite recipes, and the challenge of writing a cookbook with a healthy point of view.

Epicurious: Could you tell us how your rheumatoid arthritis was discovered?

Seamus Mullen: Sure. I had periodic flare-ups throughout my 20s, but I had no idea what they were. Every so often I would get a searing pain in my right shoulder that was so severe I couldn't even move my fingers. It was like having a hot knife jabbed deep into the socket of the joint. The pain would come out of nowhere without any warning and last for two or three days and then completely disappear.

I would go to the doctor (in some cases it would be so bad I'd go to the ER), and they would ask me what the trauma was. I'd tell them "no trauma," they'd order X-rays, see nothing, and send me home with pain meds. This happened about 10 or 12 times in my 20s.

By my early 30s it started happening more and more frequently. By the winter of 2007, I was in the ER five times! At one point, after an MRI showed that there was some joint damage, I was nearly convinced to have (unnecessary) shoulder surgery to repair a torn rotator cuff.

As the attacks became more chronic, one morning I woke up at 6 a.m. with horrendous pain in my left hip. When I tried to get out of bed and stand up, I couldn't tolerate any weight on my leg, and I collapsed. I couldn't manage to get back into bed so I dragged myself across the floor to the couch—the only problem was I realized when I got there that I had left my phone by the bed. I spent the next eight hours stuck on my couch, in too much pain to be able to move. Eventually I heard the sound of my neighbor—a good friend—coming up the stairs and I started to scream for help. Fortunately he had keys to my apartment and came in and found me and called 911.

I spent the next 10 days in the hospital—it was a bit of a medical oddity because I had extreme pain, but no trauma whatsoever. Eventually the doctors ordered an MRI, which showed that my hip was full of fluid, which was the cause of my pain. My white blood cell count was through the roof, but there was no sign of any bacterial infection. The doctors were stumped and sent a message to all departments within the hospital to see if anyone had ideas.

The chair of Rheumatology replied back that he felt he should see me and run some tests. After a few more days of horrific pain and more needles and blood tests, Dr. Harry Fischer diagnosed me with RA. I had actually never even heard of the disease before and, like most people who first hear about RA, I assumed it was some form of osteoarthritis. I had no idea that it was actually an autoimmune disease until Dr. Fischer turned to speak with one of his colleagues and I furiously Googled away on my BlackBerry (big mistake). What I found freaked the hell out of me and I suddenly realized that I might never cook again.

Epicurious: You were able to return to the kitchen after spending lots of time refining recipes for yourself and decided to turn them into a cookbook. Was it challenging turning these recipes into a cookbook?

SM: One of the biggest challenges was figuring out how to present the book primarily as a collection of recipes that are fundamentally delicious while being surreptitiously nutritious. I am a chef and my job is to make crave-able, tasty food, so I had to work to go in the opposite direction of so many of the so-called health-food cookbooks.

When I was first diagnosed, I read a lot about the impact of diet on RA. I started buying cookbooks and diet books that dealt with the relationship between food and health, and not a single one of them seemed the least bit inspirational. Frankly I couldn't imagine anyone flipping through one of these books and thinking, Wow! That sounds amazing, I can't wait to chef-up a tempeh and almond, dairy-free, wheat-free burrito!

Maybe some people do feel that way, but I felt as though there is a whole community of people that really, really love food and care about cooking and yet are concerned about the impact food has on their wellness. In this sense, I didn't ever want the book to be about exclusion, rather I wanted it to be about inclusion. You love kale? Perfect! Here's a whole gaggle of recipes for you that show you how to prepare it in all sorts of different ways.

Epicurious: Would you call Hero Food a diet book?

SM: Hero Food is not a diet book. It's not a guideline for dealing with inflammation. It's not a proposal for an alternative to medical treatment. It's simply a book about my experience with food and wellness, and the tangible impact that certain foods have had for me.

The important thing to know is that everyone is different and everyone reacts to the foods differently. What is very clear is that, regardless of who you are, a balanced diet that eschews highly processed foods and embraces seasonal, naturally raised food is good for all of us.

Epicurious: Did you consult with any doctors on the book?

SM: Yes, rheumatoid arthritis specialists as well as nutritionists.

Epicurious: What are some of your favorite hero foods?

SM: Anchovies! Little fish, big flavor! I also love eggs. There is such a difference between a good egg and a crappy one.

Epicurious: As a chef who is constantly cooking, how do you handle the pain of flare-ups? Are there tasks you avoid?

SM: I try to remember to stretch as much as I can and not stay in the same position (i.e., standing and expediting a long [kitchen] service) for too long without changing positions. I avoid doing too many repetitive tasks like peeling a case of potatoes. I avoid lifting really heavy things. I listen to my body; as soon as I start feeling like crap, I slow down.

Epicurious: Are there foods you avoid because of RA?

SM: I don't drink much alcohol, I don't eat much gluten, and I totally avoid processed foods and refined sugar.

Epicurious: You talk a lot about sourcing the foods you cook. How important is that for the everyday cook?

SM: I think it's really important to know where your food comes from. Particularly given that there are no regulations yet requiring labeling for genetically modified foods.

Epicurious: You call yourself an "unabashed meat man," yet you call for eating meat in smaller portions. Why?

SM: I love meat. There is nothing like the taste of pork. Rather than eat tons of it all the time, I'm much more in favor of incorporating it into other dishes as an ingredient. I'm more of an equal-opportunity meat man. I think in general it's best to eat smaller quantities of higher-quality meat and really savor it and appreciate it when we do choose to eat it.

Epicurious: What are some of your favorite dishes from the cookbook?

SM: That's a hard one! I love all the recipes! I'm particularly fond of the egg recipes. There are some really great things to do with eggs, and poor eggs have been really beaten up (no pun intended) over the years for their cholesterol. But the reality is that there are a lot of nutritional benefits to eating the right eggs…that is to say, free-range eggs from chickens that are not fed antibiotics or growth hormones and have a healthy, natural diet.

Epicurious: Has Spanish cuisine influenced your approach to healthy eating? Are there many Spanish-influenced recipes in the book?

SM: Without a doubt. In the two years that I cooked in Spain I hardly ever saw any butter in the kitchen. The obvious health benefits of the Spanish diet are things like olive oil and almonds, but after the Japanese, the Spanish consume more seafood than any other culture and their meats are amongst the best in the world. Galician beef is on par with Kobe beef and Ibérico pork is the undisputed king of all things porcine.

There is still a strong reverence for traditional foods in Spain and 99 percent of the time traditional foods are prepared with natural ingredients. There are big supermarkets in Spain, but most Spaniards buy their groceries in open-air markets where the majority of the produce comes from nearby farms.

I think one of the great things about Spain is that everyone actually sits down to at least one meal a day as a family. In the States it seems like we're always eating while we do something else, but in Spain you'll rarely see someone walking down the street with their lunch to go.

Epicurious: Do your hero foods work for folks who have regular arthritis, or other health issues?

SM: Hero foods are good for everyone! Hero Food is by no means a book that is intended just for people with RA or other autoimmune diseases; it's a book for anyone who is interested in good food and concerned about the impact food has on our wellness. After all, you are what you eat.

Photos: Andrews McMeel Publishing, LLC

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