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Is the following sentence (from a cookbook) grammatically correct?

"I am fairly certain that nothing could possibly go wrong when eggs and tomatoes intersect."

After this sentence, the author proceeds to discuss several examples of recipes that include both eggs and tomatoes. I would argue that "could" should be changed to "can", to make it agree with the tense of "am".

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  • I've added the "can-could" tag, which has a good discussion of the usage. The aspect of possibility trumps the nominal tense. Consider the following exchange: A. I might be able to pick you up at the airport tomorrow. B. Oh, could you? That would be great.
    – deadrat
    Commented Oct 11, 2015 at 20:49

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There is no need to make them "agree". Using could simply indicates a less likely proposition than can indicates.

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