Misprint in newspaper recipes could be fatal
By BILL DUNCAN
The View From Here
Mark Twain swore he never read cookbooks for fear of dying of a misprint. After reading the contents of a website called "Regret the Error," a sort of War and Peace recitation of errors and corrections in the media in 2006, I would have to agree. But, as an editor I have long lived in fear of printing recipes because of the possibility of misprints.
The "Regret" website was sent to me by a reader who obviously thought I would find my name and/or the newspapers I write for, among editor Craig Silverman’s 25 page listings of newspaper corrections in 2006. "Regret the Error," Silverman said, "reports on corrections, retractions, clarifications and trends regarding accuracy and honesty in the media."
Among the listings, as Mark Twain feared, was a number of misprints in recipes. According to Silverman, The Daily Press of Newport News, Virginia, ran this correction for its Thursday, June 14, 2006 Taste Section:
"… the recipe for French coconut pie incorrectly suggested that the recipe called for a pint of vodka. The accompanying recipe for homemade vanilla extract uses the vodka. Here is the corrected recipe of vanilla extract. Drop one vanilla bean in a one-pint bottle of vodka, and six months later, you have vanilla extract."
Mark Twain might have enjoyed a snort of French coconut pie, but my advice is to buy ready made vanilla extract for the recipe.
The Topeka (Kansas) Capital-Journal had this recipe correction:
"A recipe on Wednesday’s flavor page called for uncooked eggs, but it didn’t contain a warning that uncooked eggs can be a source of salmonella poisoning. To alleviate the possibility of food poisoning, used pasteurized eggs in place of raw eggs or cook the egg mixture into a custard to 160 degrees before freezing it."
The Sacramento (Calif.) Bee ran this food page correction:
"In Wednesday’s Taste Section, a Washington Post recipe on Page F7, included an incorrect cooking time for carbonada (braised beef with onions and red wine). The dish should be cooked for 2 1/2 hours, not the 10 to 20 minutes" listed.
The Milwaukee (Wisc.) Journal-Sentinel, had this correction:
"A recipe in the Entree Section Sunday for Mr. C’s Bread Pudding misstated the length of time for baking the pudding. The recipe calls for baking it for 40 minutes, not 540 minutes."
Here is a hot one from none other than The New York Times that printed this correction:
"Because of an editing error, a recipe last Wednesday for meatballs with an article about foods to serve during the Super Bowl misstated the amount of chipotle chilies in adobo to be used. It is one or two canned chiles, not one or two cans."
While Silverman obviously finds delight in parading the errors found in newsprint, he overlooks an essential fact. Newspapers are, to my knowledge, the only profession that publishes its errors in print.
That is not to say, others don’t make mistakes.
Farmers plow theirs under. Carpenters putty over theirs. Doctors bury theirs. Lawyers send theirs to jail. Teachers just pass theirs.
While I heartily agree with correcting mistakes even in public, giving detracters a website like "Regret the Error," in which to make fun of print errors, I sometimes think newspapers are too quick to say mea culpa.
Sometimes, the error is not made by reporters or editors, but by others who submit the information containing the error to the newspaper. When I was an editor, the source that made the error got the blame, and it was not always the newspaper.
Silverman ends his lengthy listings with this statement:
"Yes, mistakes happen. And they they end up here."
He means on his website but I didn’t see one indicating the errors sometime come from faulty information outside the newspaper.
Seems only fair to put the blame where it belongs.
(Bill Duncan can be reached by writing to P.O. Box 812, Roseburg, OR 97470)