Galettes are a silver-colored jawbreaker normally seen on cakes and cookies. My family has been using them on Christmas cookies since 1978, and we know this because we still have the original little bucket; these things never go out of date. They don’t really have a flavor beyond sweet.
This last week my mother and I were in a fancy cooking store and I found a box of king-sized galettes the size of large marbles. Written on the box was “Not for consumption.” We figured this was because of the size, but wondered if the silver coating had something to do with it. Once home we checked and found our little '78 tub of Durkee BB-size galettes also said “not for consumption” in small print covered up by the price tag.
We’ve been eating these things for twenty-two years without ill effects. Why would galettes be inedible? Is it the coating, or are hard little round objects dangerous enough to teeth and lungs to warrant this warning?
They contain aluminium. Aluminium is linked to Alzheimer’s disease.
Aluminium causes tangles in nerve cells - a characteristic of Alzheimer’s. It also is bound to a protein for which there are receptors in areas of the brain that are especially prone to the disease. These areas are where the aluminium is likely to end up.
To the best of my knowledge, there is no evidence of either a causal relationship or a correlation between aluminum intake and Alzheimer’s disease. Unusually high aluminum concentrations have been noted in the plaques characteristic of Alzheimer’s, but last I heard it was believed that that is a consequence of the disease, not a cause.
My great-aunt suffered from Alzheimer’s for the last ten years of her life, so I have had some cause to keep up with it.
I thought the silver-colored sugar BBs were called dragées.
Galettes are French wafers, as Kyberneticist correctly noted.
The Indian silver foil (known as varaq) is made from bonafide elemental Ag silver, and it’s safe to eat (it’s biochemically inert, I think). But a vegetarian mail list alerted me that the workers who hammer the silver into foil (“Maxwell’s Silver Hammer”, indeed) enclose it in sheets of flattened-out animal intestines while hammering.
I thought those silver-thingies (sorry for the technical language there) were coated with silver, the metal, the chemical element.
IIRC, silver is edible, so there’s no harm. But I do remember an article in the news about a month or so ago. Some guy has been eating cake with LOTS of these galletes or dragées or whatever they’re called on it. He’s eaten enough and over a long enough period of time that his body couldn’t get rid of it, and therefore his face/skin took on a blackened look, caused by silver building up in his skin and oxidizing.
The connection between aluminium and Alzheimer’s disease is indeed not yet entirely proven. That’s why I said “is linked to”, rather than “causes”. Some studies show a link, others do not. Some studies show a mechanism by which aluminium concentration can build up in parts of the brain. No study has yet been conclusive, and KellyM is right to point this out.
Whether or not dietary aluminium intake is finally shown to be a trigger of Alzheimer’s disease, it is on the basis that it might be that silvery coloured cake decorations are labelled not for consumption.
In the UK, at least, the silvery cake decorations are made with real aluminium, not real silver.
I have the bucket of “Durkee Gay-ettes® Silvers” in front of me. The Gay-ette thing led me astray, sorry.
The ingredients are listed as sugar, starch, silver, and gelatin. No aluminum. I’m not even sure if aluminum is non-edible, since aluminum sulfate is one of the components of baking powder. Silver’s been covered already as safe, if (bad pun alert) tinged with difficulty. And the sugar, starch, and gelatin mickey shouldn’t be a problem. Guess it really is the danger of a small pellet, even one the size of a marble.
Also - they’re kosher. Big capital “K”. Also irrelevant, since a lot of non-food products that come into contact with food get certified. Taste good, though.
Yeah, my mom had a bake shop and she used those silver balls for years. They’re marked inedible because you really shouldn’t eat them, they’re indigestible. They just want a disclaimer in case someone someone breaks a tooth or something like that.
It is common practice to use gold decorations on cakes, cookies, etc. Gold leaf is common, and gold is about the most inert metal, it’s indigestible too, but it won’t hurt you. But the jury’s still out on the safety of silver. California environmental laws consider silver as heavy metal pollution, in the same category as cadmium. Silver definitely isn’t as dangerous as that, but I don’t think I’d make a habit of ingesting it.
IIRC Silver fillings aren’t “silver” per se. They’re 50% murcury, and 50% a mixture of silver, zinc, and copper. They’re just silver colored. I’m pretty sure they now use porcelain instead, but I’m no dentist.
Well, according to Larousse Gastonomique- you are all wrong.
A “dragee” is “an item of confectionary consisting of an almond with a hard coating of sugar”. What you folks are breaking your teeth on are “perles d’argent”. Atho, since those are listed under the “dragee” listing, I guess it can be argued that they are a type of dragee.
Note that altho a "galette’ is a “flat round cake”, a “galet” is a type of dragee. The word “dragee” comes from the greek “tragemata” and they have been around since at least 1220.
Sorry about all that- it’s a freakin SIXTY buck book- i have to justify it here somehow.
