Two Pinches of Negligence: Magazine Causes Poisonings Due to Typo in Apple Cake Recipe

Now this could make for an interesting tort case — literally. Ok, it was technically an apple cake not a torte but liability is likely to follow a bizarre accident over a typo in a published recipe in Stockholm, Sweden. Instead of calling for two pinches of nutmeg, a type in the cooking magazine Matmagasinet called for “20 nutmeg nuts” resulting in at least four poison cases.

The affected people complained of mild symptoms of dizziness and headaches, but have recovered. The magazine immediately sent out 50,000 letters to subscribers to warn that “high doses of nutmeg can cause poisoning symptoms.”

It is not clear if other Swedes were laid low by the apple cake, but they may want to be extra careful on specificity in the sponge cake and, of course, the venerable torte.

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