Is the wax on apples toxic?

Is the wax on apples toxic? L. Tan

No. It is not toxic. Apples grow with a natural wax. Pick an apple straight from the tree and it does not have that shiny supermarket lustre. However, rub a freshly picked apple with a cloth or on your thigh like a spin bowler and it will quickly shine up. Apples bound for the greengrocer and supermarket are generally washed, polished and coated in a food-grade glazing agent. Fifteen per cent of Australian apples are coated in carnauba wax made from the leaves of a tropical palm straight from the tree. Most of the other 85 per cent are coated in shellac which is made from the lac beetle. It is not made from the beetle itself but a secretion produced by the female lac beetle to protect her eggs. Another little thing vegans need to look out for. You'll find similar glazing agents on shiny confectionary. For people who are very sensitive to bitterness the wax can be perceived as a little bit bitter.

Can I eat the green part of the leek? P. Rodriguez

Your question coincided with the recent revelation that someone in my family suffers from tummy trouble due to FODMAP – the acronym for fermentable oligosaccharides, disaccharides, monosaccharides and polyols. These are carbohydrates that are not digested until they get to the lower end of the gut where they cause all sorts of mayhem. Scientists at Monash University have discovered that the green part of leeks does not contain the fermentable fructans that occur in the white bulb. Yes you can eat the green part of the leek but because it is tougher you need to cook it slowly for twice as long as the white part.

What is better – dry yeast or fresh yeast? P. Hulme

"Which" is better, not "what"! Anyway, there is an old baker in a Barossa bakery who tells the story of his father who would sleep on flour bags spread across the top of the old wooden dough fermenter. In the wee hours of the morning and warmed by the wood oven he would snooze until the dough had fermented so much that it lifted the lid enough to send him rolling onto the bakery floor. There they still use fresh yeast plus a little of the dough from the previous day. When I was working with Melbourne baker Phillippa Grogan on Phillippa's Home Baking we experimented using fresh and dried active yeast and found no difference in flavour, texture or ferment times. Dried active yeast is simply fresh yeast that has been freeze-dried and formed into tiny pellets. Five grams of the stuff is equivalent to 10 grams of fresh yeast. Dried active yeast, once opened, can be stored in the freezer.

Letters, Correction and Apologies

In regards to poaching eggs Mr A. Kortis writes, "I tried the method you described last week (placing an egg into a sieve to remove the excess white then sliding into a pot of simmering water). I found it good to have the pot quite full as this helps the egg hold its shape."

brainfood@richardcornish.com.au