Some of you may have seen that the Miette book has been withdrawn from the market due to being riddled with errors.  Amazon is promising new copies once it has been corrected, so kudos to either them or the publisher.

So, whose fault?  The editor?  the authors?  Both?

Sadly it seems like there is plenty of blame to go around. 1/4 cup salt instead of 1/4 tsp should have been caught by the author and the editor and the proof reader. Oh never mind can’t blame the proof reader. No publishers hire them anymore. “Run it through spell check and call it good,” seems to be their motto.

I try to be understanding about the difficulty in completely eliminating errors in books, but I must say that nothing turns me against a book or author more quickly than spending hours of time and quality ingredients on a recipe that doesn’t work due to errors.  The most frequent problems I come across seem to stem from recipes being scaled down from bakery sizes to home kitchen sizes. 

Every cookbook author or publisher should have errata posted on the web. 

It’s great, though that it’s being recalled and fixed. 

These kinds of stories make me appreciate the extraordinary effort that Rose puts into her work.

Absolutely Gene! If there is one thing I can count on it is Rose’s recipes always work. Her ingredients are the perfect amount for the pan and the timing is always, always perfect.

With every other book I have, I ignore the time of baking, set my timer for less time and keep checking.

Some of the times are really out of the ball park as in Maida Heatter’s “Book Of Great Desserts” and Joanne Chang’s “Flour”

Yes, I’m with you there- so grateful for Rose’s attention to detail, thorough testing and posting of errata!  I will rarely trust my time and ingredients to another author.

Julie - 07 August 2011 07:13 AM

Yes, I’m with you there- so grateful for Rose’s attention to detail, thorough testing and posting of errata!  I will rarely trust my time and ingredients to another author.

Ditto!!  I so happened to be telling someone today:  I have one author I can always trust.  I really appreciate the effort she has put in testing…and supplementing that with this blog/forum!!