On the Trail of Something Fishy : Magazines: Do we really need another food periodical? The answer seems to be “maybe so.”

How often have you heard this: Welcome to Seafood R Us. Tonight’s specials include anisakid nematodes, scombrotox, ciguatoxin, mercury, cadmium, chromium, arsenic, lead, dioxin, PCBs, DDT and other chlorinated pesticides.

Not often enough, according to an article in the premiere issue of Eating Well--the Magazine of Food and Health.

Between 1982 and 1986, twice as many people became ill from eating seafood in this country as from eating beef and poultry combined, according to testimony before a congressional committee. Inspecting 336 imported seafood samples in 1986, the understaffed FDA found that a quarter contained excessive amounts of several monitored substances.

And even then, the inspection system clearly can’t be held accountable for much of what lands on the platter. “The system of seafood inspection consists of a motley patchwork of federal, state and local programs . . . and they result in the direct scrutiny of a tiny fraction of the nation’s seafood supply,” Craig Canine writes in a piece, “Something Fishy at the Seafood Counter.”

In the article, Canine buys a fillet of alleged red snapper (like much so-called red snapper, it turns out to be Pacific rock fish) at a Des Moines supermarket, then traces it back along the weeklong route it traveled, passing on planes and trucks, through two distribution warehouses, a processing plant and three airports, as well as an Oregon-based fishing boat called the “Iron Lady.” Along the way, the article and companion stories, examine seafood from every possible perspective.

It’s a surprisingly interesting travelogue.

“Does the world really need another food magazine?” publisher James M. Lawrence asks in this charter issue of Eating Well.

Hard though it is to believe, the answer would seem to be “maybe so.” A “sister publication” of Harrowsmith Country Life, this Vermont-based bimonthly promises to provide readers “with the information they need to make eating, cooking and buying decisions in their lives. To enlighten readers in the face of conflicting reports and advice in other popular media (and) . . . to serve as a national forum on the state of the world food chain and how it impacts on the lives of our readers.”

“Something Fishy at the Seafood Counter,” would make a fine main course in almost any magazine spread; the rest of the meal--including a story on the nutritional value of onions and a piece on home-baked bread--is also nicely done. (For subscription information, call (800) 344-3350).

REQUIRED READING

* Details magazine is reportedly under the scalpel, undergoing the sort of cosmetic transformation that is de rigueur for trendy publications these days. But the old format goes out howling, with an August cover by photographer William Wegman that is perfectly suited to summer’s dog days. His use of pooches as clotheshorses is inspired. Nina Blanchard is probably searching the county pound for next season’s models already.

* The July-August issue of Beach Culture has washed up on newsstands, and from the oddly amusing black and white cover to the wildly colorful ads, it’s the visual equivalent of a big day at Rincon: a crowded, jarring, challenging but ultimately exhilarating experience that leaves readers satiated and slightly dazed. The debut winter issue of this magazine was pretty, but oozed self-satisfied surf-dude pretensions. With the summer issue, the magazine finds its rhythm and starts to shred.

The highlight is a dazzling portfolio of painters’ and photographers’ impressions of summer. If there’s a down side, it’s that the relentless artistry of the issue extends to the typesetting. Form takes a sadistic swipe at function, leaving some of the intriguing print almost impossible to read. In the first issue, few articles were worth the effort. This time, several pay off nicely--notably, an old, never published interview of director David Lynch. There’s also a piece looking back at an encounter between Charles Manson and the Beach Boys, which informs, among other things, that the latest word for hot surfing this summer is Manson-- as in “that guy totally Mansoned that wave.”

* In 1874, when a young girl named Mary Ellen McCormack testified before a New York City court that she was regularly whipped and beaten by a mother who had never even purchased her a pair of shoes, there was no legal means to save a child from child abuse in this country. It took the intervention of the founder of the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals to get a judge to hear McCormack’s case. McCormack’s testimony, a reporter there wrote, “stirred the soul of a city and roused the conscience of a world that had forgotten. . . . I knew I was where the first chapter of children’s rights was being written.” That still relevant episode is recounted in the July-August American Heritage.

* “ ‘The Andy Griffith Show’ is a beautiful combination of laughs and sniffles, physical humor and well-crafted dialogue.” The “Rockford Files” was probably television’s “best-written, best-acted hour.” And those shows are the No. 1 and No. 2 best television shows in television history, says the July 20, Entertainment Weekly. Readers will find ample cause to argue with certain choices. EW is, however, clearly right about “Griffith,” “Rockford,” “WKRP,” “Lucy,” “MASH,” and “Bonanza,” and clearly wrong about “The Love Boat,” “Good Times” and “Laverne & Shirley.”

* Some bird lovers may be put off by the matter-of-fact photographs of dead specimens, but most birders and amateur ornithologists are likely to be enthralled with the summer issue of Terra, the magazine of the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County. The issue features articles on the condor rehabitation program, the retrospective detective work that goes into the study of prehistoric bird species, and an interesting discussion of why the museum maintains a collection of more than 100,000 whole or partial bird carcasses.

SHREDDER FODDER

* The August-October issue of Special Report--on Personalities (one of those Whittle Communications single-issue magazines you find only in doctor’s offices) has a pretty good piece on how the American justice system deals with celebrity law-breakers. It quotes Jay Leno’s joke on Zsa Zsa Gabor’s sentence for cop-slapping: “Well, that should send a strong message to drug lords that America knows how to get tough on crime.” But the magazine hypocritically features Gabor on its cover, wearing sequinned boxing gloves and laughing--at the law, apparently.