Spinach and Popeye the Sailor

In today's selection -- in 1870, a German chemist made an error in transcribing the data on how much iron was in spinach, providing a lesson in the spread and persistence of erroneous information in society:   "One of the strangest examples of the spread of error is related to Popeye the Sailor. Popeye, with his odd accent and improbable forearms, used spinach to great effect, a sort of anti-Kryptonite. It gave him his strength, and perhaps his distinctive speaking style. But why did Popeye eat so much spinach? What was the reason for his obsession with such a strange food?       "The truth begins more than fifty years earlier. Back in 1870, Erich von Wolf, a German chemist, examined the amount of iron within spinach, among many other green vegetables. In recording his findings, von Wolf accidentally misplaced a decimal point when transcribing data from his notebook, changing the iron content in spinach by an order of magnitude. While there are actually only 3.5 milligrams of iron in a 100-gram serving of spinach, the accepted fact became 35 milligrams. To put this in perspective, if the calcu­lation were correct each 100-gram serving would be like eating a small piece of a paper clip.   "Once this incorrect number was printed, spinach's nutritional value became legendary. So when Popeye was created, studio ex­ecutives recommended he eat spinach for his strength, due to its vaunted health properties. Apparently Popeye helped increase American consumption of spinach by a third!   "This error was eventually corrected in 1937, when someone rechecked the numbers. But the damage had been done. It spread and spread, and only recently has gone by the wayside, no doubt helped by Popeye's relative obscurity today. But the error was so widespread that the British Medical Journal published an article discussing this spinach incident in 1981, trying its best to finally debunk the issue.   "Ultimately, the reason these [types of] errors spread is because it's a lot easier to spread the first thing you find, or the fact that sounds cor­rect, than to delve deeply into the literature in search of the correct fact."   Author: Samuel Arbesman    Title: The Half-Life of Facts Publisher: Penguin Group Date: Copyright 2012 by Samuel Arbesman Pages: 83-84 The Half-life of Facts: Why Everything We Know Has an Expiration Date by Samuel Arbesman by Current Hardcover Hardcover             About Us Delanceyplace is a brief daily email with an excerpt or quote we view as interesting or noteworthy, offered with commentary to provide context.  There is no theme, except that most excerpts will come from a non-fiction work, mainly works of history, are occasionally controversial, and we hope will have a more universal relevance than simply the subject of the book from which they came.

Canongate signs Samin Nosrat cookbook

• 16.04.13 | Joshua Farrington - The Bookseller 

Canongate has signed what it calls a “revolutionary” cookbook from American writer Samin Nosrat.

Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat: The Four Elements of Good Cooking shuns recipes in favour of guiding cooks to understand the science of their meals and follow their instincts.
Jenny Lord, senior editor at Canongate, bought UK and Commonwealth rights in a four-way auction from Felicity Blunt at Curtis Brown on behalf of Kari Stuart at ICM.

In the US, Nosrat met with 14 prospective publishers, with North American and translation rights ultimately acquired by Michael Szczerban at Simon & Schuster.
The book will be published in both territories in spring 2015.

FOOD HUB

This site - foodhub.co.nz is well worth a look.

It brings together the best recipes from The New Zealand Herald, New Zealand Woman's Weekly, The NZ Listener, Viva and Bite.

Sicily

from PW

Editors of Phaidon. Phaidon,

US $39.95 (272p) ISBN 978-0714863528

 

       

This beautiful cookbook and travelogue features over 50 traditional recipes along with stunning photos that transport readers to the island of “many microclimates”: desert, mountains, hilly inlands, and coastlines.

 

Each chapter covers one of Sicily’s nine provinces, with an introduction that highlights main ingredients and influences, and that stresses peasant cooking—“a tradition of eating what is local, seasonal, and often foraged.” In the chapter on Trapani, the northwestern coast, the editors bring to the table prawns with capers and tuna with potatoes and honey sauce.

 

From Palermo, which has both sea and mountains, comes pasta with sardines and spaghettini fritters. Highlights throughout the book include Messina-style swordfish rolls, fennel sausages with oranges and bread, and sweet-and-sour Nebrodi rabbit. Both adventurous and traditional cooks will be thrilled and inspired by this unique and varied collection of Italian dishes. (US publication May)

bookcooker, PD James, and Jane Austen

Meyer Lemon Tart and Death Comes to Pemberley

Posted: 13 Apr 2013  -  bookcooker

I guess it does not make sense to make such a cute little dish for a book with Death in the title, but as spring tries to break through my New England April, I felt compelled to make something pretty and light.  Luckily, a dainty little tart is exactly the kind of thing that would be enjoyed at the fictionally famous great house, Pemberley.  P.D. James' Death Comes to Pemberley borrows the characters from Jane Austen's classic Pride and Prejudice and uses them in a murder mystery.  The novel is set several years after Pride and Prejudice ends, with Elizabeth (formerly) Bennett and Fitzwilliam Darcy happily married, with children and living at Pemberley, the Darcy family seat. On the eve of the Lady Anne's ball, an annual grand ball that the Darcy family hosts, a man is found dead in the woods on the Pemberley estate.  Of course, if there is trouble, Elizabeth's sister Lydia and her scoundrel husband Wickham are bound to be involved, and Wickham is charged with the murder of his friend Captain Denny.  I have not read any of James' 20 or so previous books - she is a well known and lauded crime writer, who also happens to be in her 90's.   Austen done by a mystery writer? You would expect the book to be clunky and a poor imitation of Austen's wit and style.  The opposite is true, James falls effortlessly into Austen's world, and writes with her wit, but with a simpler more modern writing style.  I found the book charming and engrossing, and I was so happy to have a chance to see what happened to these beloved characters after Austen's story came to a close.  I was, however, a bit stumped as to my dish.  Originally, I was going to make a regency "white soup" that is mentioned in many Austen novels and was mentioned in Death as well - it is a weird soup made with almonds, stale bread, beef stock and sometimes eggs.  I bought white bread twice for this, and never got to the soup before it went moldy.  So when I saw a picture of a cheerful lemon tart on Serious Eats, I decided that would be my dish for Death Comes to Pemberley, since it is the type of tart the Darcy's would have served at their ball or at tea.  With this much sunshine on a plate, hopefully the Boston weather will turn towards spring soon too.

 

Six years after Jane Austen leaves off in Pride and Prejudice, P.D. James picks up with the continued story of Elizabeth and Darcy.  Thankfully, they are happily married with two sons, and living close by to Elizabeth's beloved sister Jane and her husband Bingley. Elizabeth has taken well to life running a well off estate and is most assuredly content as she readies for an annual Pemberley tradition - the Lady Anne ball.   All is going to plan until her flighty sister Lydia turns up, uninvited, and in a hysterical state.  Thinking that she would "surprise" her sister by coming to the ball, Lydia, her husband Wickham and their friend Captain Denny were on their way to Pemberley, when in some sort of an argument, Wickham and Denny leave the carriage and wander into the rumored to be haunted Pemberley woods.  When Lydia arrives at Pemberley she is certain that her husband, Wickham, is dead because she heard gunshots in the woods.  Readers (or watchers) of Pride and Prejudice know that Wickham is a handsome lout, who Elizabeth was once in love with and who tried to elope with Darcy's innocent younger sister Georgiana.  Darcy banned him from Pemberley, so Lydia's arrival was quite a shock.  It is soon discovered that alas Wickham is not dead but Captain Denny is, and in classic crime fiction fashion, makes an ambiguous confession at the scene.  Wickham is arrested, and Darcy and Elizabeth must handle the unthinkable, a murder investigation on their beautiful estate.  Once Wickham was arrested and the local magistrate brought in to investigate, I was expecting a suspenseful whodunit type of novel, full of twists and turns.  As it turns out, the "who killed Denny" mystery was solved in rather anticlimactic way during Wickham's trial.  The mystery was an excuse for writing the book, but the real heart of the book is James' s continuation of the Pemberley story, her subtle but convincing Austenian writing style, and her brilliant fleshing out of Austen's characters from a more modern perspective.  It was a pleasure to spend some more time with Darcy and Elizabeth after the melodrama of their engagement and see how they settle into life together.  For any Austen fan, this book is a fun must..

More at bookcooker, including the recipe for Meyer Lemon Tart.

Publisher releases innovative digital cookbook and parenting series

A series of mini cookbooks and mini parenting books designed especially for the ebook environment is being launched today by Random House New Zealand.

The first four in what will be an ongoing series of standalone, ten-recipe cookbooks are by some of New Zealand’s best known chefs and foodwriters, all of whom are published by Random House.

“We are very excited about this project,” says Random House New Zealand publishing director Nicola Legat. “ You will never beat the glory of a well-published printed cookbook, but we’re very aware that lots of New Zealanders do like to look for recipes online when they are searching for meal solutions.

“As New Zealand’s leading publisher of cookbooks we’ve naturally got a treasure trove of recipes so we decided to package them up in tightly-themed, small collections to make looking for recipe ideas more simple.”

The authors involved in the first stage of the project are Jo Seagar with baking recipes, Michael Van de Elzen with small plates recipes, Helen Jackson with family meal recipes and Joan Bishop with crockpot and slow cooker recipes.

In addition Random House is also publishing five ebooks in what will become an extensive Parenting Tips series.  The series topics are sleep, crying, exercise and brain development, toilet training, postnatal depression and bullying, and are distilled from the bestselling books by leading parenting authors  Diane Levy, Kathy Fray and Sophie Foster.

“We are enjoying working with our authors in this new digital environment,” says Nicola Legat. “ And it’s exciting to think that because these books are available internationally, someone  in Wisconsin or Frankfurt may be sitting down to a dinner created with recipes from New Zealand chefs or responding to a parenting issue by seeking the advice of one of New Zealand’s parenting experts. ”

Footnote:

Apologies for the lack of cover illustrations. While away in Europe (presently in Stockholm) my picture file has "broken down" and I am having difficulty placing illustrations. I will add them when I get back to NZ and have the problem sorted.

Award-winning cookbook author Natalie Oldfield to be guest judge on MasterChef New Zealand

Natalie Oldfield, author of Gran’s Kitchen, Gran’s Family Table, Dulcie May Kitchen: Everyday, and Gran’s Sweet Pantry, is to feature on MasterChef New Zealand.

On this week’s episode, which will air on TV One on Sunday, 7 April at 7.30 pm, Natalie will be a guest judge alongside the formidable judging panel of three of New Zealand’s top chefs: Simon Gault, Ray McVinnie and Josh Emett.

In this episode, Natalie sets the 10 remaining contestants the task of baking her much-loved Hot Water Sponge, as featured in Gran’s Sweet Pantry.

In a later episode, Natalie is invited back by the judges to teach a baking master class, in which a few lucky contestants are able to garner some knowledge from this award-winning baker.

Natalie opened her food store, Dulcie May Kitchen, in Mt Eden in 2009 as a tribute to her grandmother, Dulcie May Booker.  In the year of its opening, Dulcie May Kitchen won Best Cake Shop in Metro magazine and in 2010 was voted one of the Top 50 Cafés.

Gran’s Sweet Pantry is a collection of the best recipes from Dulcie May, beautifully reproduced and laden with gorgeous images.

Natalie’s debut cookbook, Gran’s Kitchen, sold more than 15,000 copies in New Zealand alone, won the Gourmand Book Award in Europe for best local cuisine in New Zealand and is published in Australia and Great Britain.  Her follow-up title, Gran’s Family Table, also won a Gourmand Cookbook Award in 2011

MasterChef New Zealand is the search to find our country’s best amateur cook. Over a period of 17 weeks, the contestants compete in a series of intense cooking challenges to find New Zealand's next MasterChef.