BITES

Nix on Prex Cooks

This presidential cookbook thing has finally gone too far. The latest, “Hail to the Chef! A Taste of Power by Russell Kramer” (Time-Life Books; $12.95), is about an imaginary president. “Russell Kramer” is the name of the ex-president Jack Lemmon plays in “My Fellow Americans.” In the movie (made by Warner Bros., owner of Time-Life), the Kramer character has written a cookbook . . . coincidentally titled “Hail to the Chef!”

This book, actually written by two guys named Tom Conner and Jim Downey, is a collection of regional American recipes with a feeble joke in Kramer’s style introducing most of them. Time-Warner is really, really counting on people to love the movie.

Calling All Kitchen Disasters

The Crummy Cooks, Mike Iwanicki and Doug Scott, want to know about your worst recipes and most hilarious kitchen blunders for a horrifying-sounding book they are writing. You can phone or fax them with your family folklore at (847) 677-9611. (This is the equivalent of a 900 number, but Iwanicki and Scott say part of the money will go to food banks and to help the needy.)

Digestive Knowledge

Readers Digest Books interviewed 400 people in fast-food restaurants and outside health food stores about food and health. The results: The fast-food people answered three times as many questions correctly as the health foodies. For instance, almost all burger-eaters knew that apples are relatively low in nutrients, while only about half the health food customers were aware of this. Percentage who knew that a “reduced fat” label doesn’t necessarily mean low fat: 68% vs. 18%.

The health foodies were more knowledgeable in only two areas. One was that tofu can be a source of food poisoning (they took that one 61% to 24%), which suggests that the two populations tend to be better informed about the dangers of the kind of food they’re more likely to eat.