Website Recipes Leave Sour Taste for Mccain Campaign

According to John McCain's website, there is nothing the presumptive Republican presidential nominee likes more than to sit down to a home-cooked dinner, lovingly prepared by his wife Cindy, of ahi (yellow fin) tuna, or pasta with turkey sausage, followed by a passion fruit mousse.

A selection of the senator's healthy offerings were helpfully listed under the title "Cindy's recipes" for anybody wanting to eat in the style of the possible next American president.

Until yesterday that is, when the recipes section was swiftly removed from McCain's official campaign website and a spokesman admitted that seven recipes were not family favorites at all, but had been lifted verbatim from the Food Network and television chef Rachael Ray.

The deception was first spotted by an environmental lawyer in New York who enjoys cooking, and were reported by the Huffington Post.

Tucker Bounds, the McCain spokesman, said the recipes had been posted to the site by a campaign intern. "The intern was dealt with swiftly and the site is down for revision," Bounds told reporters.

As for the senator's dinner favorites, Bounds said McCain's wife liked to cook lemon chicken and beef stew.

Cindy, 53, McCain's second spouse, has been central to her husband's campaign for the White House, standing by his side after he was forced to deny allegations in the New York Times of an affair. In 1994 she admitted to a three-year addiction to painkillers, which she blamed on the pain from two back operations. It emerged that she had stolen pills from the American Voluntary Medical Team, a third world relief charity she had founded. She later entered a rehab program rather than face criminal charges.

Recipes spiced up the campaign of a former Republican rival, Mitt Romney, whose wife Ann contributed Meatloaf Cakes and Welsh Skillet Cakes to Romney's website.

There are no recipes yet on the websites of the Democratic party's rival presidential nominees, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton.