Popeye cookbook reveals Sailor Man's healthy-eating secrets

• Culture
• Books

Healthy recipes based on Olive Oyl, Bluto, Swee' Pea and Popeye's favourites will arrive in bookshops in October

• Alison Flood
• guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 10 August 2011 09.53 BST
• Article history

The Popeye Cookbook is 'designed to be handled by the most vigorous of chefs'
Strong to the finish because he ate his spinach, Popeye the Sailor Man is launching his first cookbook packed with strength-giving, healthy recipes. The Popeye Cookbook, out in October, is "designed to be handled by the most vigorous of chefs", according to its publisher SelfMadeHero, which is promising users they will stay as slim as Olive Oyl and as strong as Popeye himself. Containing 150 recipes, from pasta with spinach and ricotta to homemade green food colouring (ingredients: spinach and mint leaves), the "sailor-turned-chef" will be providing "healthy takes on some all-American classics, moreish snacks, vegetarian dinners, special smoothies and seaside suppers", said SelfMadeHero. "These recipes are meant to build you up, give you hair on your chest and immediate strength," said Doug Wallace, marketing director at the publisher, which last year published a Moomins cookbook. "We loved doing the Moomins book and it did really well: Moomin HQ were very pleased. But the idea for a Popeye book actually came first." The recipes, which also include Swee' Pea's Cheesecake and Wimpy's Barbeque Hamburger ("which will be healthier than you think," said Wallace) have been created by cookbook author Josephine Bacon, whose Exotic Fruits & Vegetables won the Gourmand World cookbook awards. "We wanted to find an author who could produce healthy recipes," said Wallace. "They didn't have to be just spinach. There are slimming recipes inspired by Olive Oyl, and more hearty stuff by Bluto: they're themed on the character." Popeye and his friends were created by EC Segar in 1929 – a time when the health benefits of spinach "were barely appreciated," according to Bacon. "No one was thinking about healthy eating – how food gave you energy and strength," she said. "EC Segar's contribution to child nutrition has been immense. In many respects, he and Popeye were pioneers of healthy eating in America." The recipe book will precede Popeye's return to the pages of comic books next year. All-new adventures for the character, Olive Oyl, Bluto, Wimpy and Swee'Pea will be published by IDW Publishing from early 2012, the press announced last month.