Chocolate Forum
Chat => General => Topic started by: paulham on August 04, 2008, 05:35:25 pm
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Celebrity chef Antony Worrall Thompson has apologised after he recommended use of a poisonous plant in recipes.
In a magazine interview about watercress and other wild foods, Mr Worrall Thompson said the weed henbane was "great in salads".
Healthy & Organic Living magazine's website has now issued an urgent warning that "henbane is a very toxic plant and should never be eaten".
The chef had meant to recommend fat hen, which is a wild herb. ...................He is unsure how the mistake happened.
"It's a bit embarrassing but there have been no reports of any casualties. Please do pass on my apologies."
Healthy & Organic Living magazine's editor Kate Collyns has written to subscribers to apologise.
Her publication's website gives this advice: "As always, check with an expert when foraging or collecting wild plants."
As always, check you facts before publishing a story.
Great piece of journalism from the magazine.
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Henbane is not that poisonous, although it's in the same family as Deadly Nightshade, which is lethal. Henbane would probably make you quite sick, unless you ate lots of it, or took it in a concentrated form (a la Crippin). This shows that chefs should stay with cooking and leave botany to botanists.
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It also shows that journalists should check their sources before going to print.
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Exactly. I wonder how many journalists have even heard of Henbane or Fathen?
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And so it continues.
I do like the following article:
What the survey didn't say...
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/7542886.stm
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Excellent stuff!