NPR's Scott Simon checks in again with writer A.J. Jacobs, who is reading the entire Encyclopaedia Britannica. Jacobs has made it through the letter P, where he has discovered that a Patch Box is the place where French people used to store their fake beauty marks.
Also: In his classic book Remembrance of Things Past, Marcel Proust recounts the story of how biting into a madeleine prompted a rush of memories that inspired him to write. But under the letter "P," Jacobs learns that in truth, the magical memory cookie was actually a dry piece of toast known as a rusk cracker.
And pastries don't just prompt books; as Jacob tells it, they've also been credited with starting at least one war, as have pigs and beer.
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