Diver UK – July 2019

DIVER NEWS

17 divEr

DIVER NEWS

divErNEt.com

I have chosen this dish to commemorate the 75th

anniversary of the 6 June D-Day landings and the

USS Susan B Anthonytroopship, named after one of

the driving forces in the women’s suffrage movement.

Susan was once asked what her favourite dish was, and said: “My favourite cake

is the old-fashioned sponge, made of eggs, the whites lashed to a stiff froth, the

yolks beaten thoroughly with cups of pulverised sugar, a pinch of salt, a slight

flavour of almond. Into these stir cups of flour – first a little flour, then a little of the

white froth – and pour the foaming batter into a dish with a bit of white buttered

paper in the bottom. Clap into a rightly tempered oven as quickly as possible and

take out exactly at the proper minute, when it is baked just enough to hold itself up

to its highest and best estate. Then don’t cut, but break it carefully, and the golden

sponge is fit for the gods...”

In 1942, the Susan

B Anthony became

one of very few ships

to be named after a

woman. As a transport

ship she made three

voyages from the USA

to North Africa,

carrying troops and

equipment for the

Allied invasion. In July 1943 in Sicily she was bombed and took heavy aircraft

fire, but shot down two bombers. The next few months were spent bringing

troops and equipment from the USA to Europe for the Normandy landings.

On 7 June, 1944, she struck a mine off Omaha Beach. Bids to save her failed and

troops and crew were evacuated before she sank. As of 2015, this was still the

biggest recorded rescue of people from a ship without loss of life. The “Suzie”

now rests in 30m in France’s Baie de Seine and is one of my favourite dives.

Ingredients

5 eggs (separated),½ tsp almond essence, 225g castor

sugar, 130g sifted self-raising flour, pinch of salt. For

the Chia Raspberry Jam: 200g fresh raspberries, 1

tbsp honey, ½ tsp vanilla extract, 2½ tbsp chia seeds.

Method

Preheat oven to 160°C. Line 12in round cake-tin with

greaseproof paper. Whisk egg yolks, almond essence

and half the sugar with mixer until thick and pale.

Whisk egg whites and salt to form soft peaks. Slowly

add rest of sugar and whisk again. When peaks are

glossy and begin to stiffen, remove whisk.

Fold quarter of egg whites into yolk mixture. Add the

rest on top. Sift flour over them. Gently fold flour and

egg whites into batter. Tip mixture into tin. Bake for

35min until golden-brown. Check with cake tester

(skewer). Invert cake over rack and cool

completely before coaxing out of tin.

For jam, whizz up raspberries, honey

and vanilla essence with blender until

smooth. Stir in chia seeds with spoon.

Leave in fridge for 1hr to set.

Tip

Serve with lashings of whipped,

double or clotted cream – or with

vanilla ice-cream as a dessert. The fresh

jam keeps in the fridge for up to 4 days.

Make pink-gin drizzle by mixing juice

of a lemon, 50ml of gin and 2 tbsp

maple syrup. Poke holes in cake using

skewer. Do this while still in the tin

cooling down. This cake freezes really

well too.

Susan B Anthony 75th D-Day Anniversary Cake

Freda’s Diver Dishes

Find more of Freda Wright’s recipes

in the book 40 Dives 40 Dishes. It costs

£16 plus £1.64 postage, with £1 from

every sale going to Oceans Plastics

Greenpeace, salutay.co.uk

terror

sharks

would leave the area within

minutes of orcas arriving, even

though the killer whales might stay

for no more than an hour.

The sharks either reassembled at

other seal colonies further along

the coast or headed offshore.

“We don’t typically think about

how fear and risk-aversion might

play a role in shaping where large

predators hunt and how that

influences ocean eco-systems,” said

Jorgensen. “It turns out these risk

effects are very strong even for

large predators like white sharks –

strong enough to redirect their

hunting activity to less preferred

but safer areas.”

What remained unclear was

whether the orcas regarded the

great whites as prey or were simply

competing for the seals.

The study is published inNature

Scientific Reports.

...as tiger sharks get a taste for songbirds

TIGER SHARKS HAVE NEVERbeen

thought of as fussy eaters, but US

scientists have been surprised to

discover that, for juveniles of the

species, land-based birds such as

sparrows, woodpeckers and doves

have become a regular addition to

their diet.

Marcus Drymon of Mississippi State

University and his team caught 105

sharks measuring around 1m in

length in the Gulf of Mexico. They

quickly pumped the sharks’ stomachs

on their boat before returning them

unharmed to the sea.

Forty-one of the sharks (39%) were

found to have partially digested bird

remains in their stomachs. These were

sent to Chicago’s Field Museum

laboratories for analysis, comparing

DNA sequences in the tissues to bird

databases to determine the species.

“None of them were seagulls,

pelicans, cormorants, or any kind of

marine bird,” said Drymon. “They were

all terrestrial birds.”

“Tiger sharks will see an easy meal

and snatch it up, but I was surprised to

learn that the sharks were eating

songbirds – I assumed that they’d be

seabirds,” said Kevin Feldheim, a

museum researcher and co-author

with Drymon of a new study

published in Ecology.

The research has been claimed as

the first evidence of the sharks eating

terrestrial songbirds, which they

picked off as they flew over the Gulf of

Mexico during their migration season.

“In every instance, the timing of the

tiger shark eating the bird coincided

with the peak sighting for that species

of bird off our coast,” said Drymon.

“The tiger sharks scavenge on

songbirds that have trouble flying

over the ocean,” added Feldheim.

“During migration, they’re already

worn out, and then they get tired or

fall into the ocean during a storm.”

He said that they appeared to make

more attractive prey than seabirds,

being less well-equipped to handle

themselves in and over the sea. 

FIELD MUSEUM

Unexpected stomach-pumping experience

but the sharks were said to be unharmed.