A Sticky Milestone

This year is the 100th anniversary of the invention of peanut butter, which was originally a health food, later became a grammar school treat and recently has made a comeback among adults for some unclear mixture of health food and nostalgia reasons. Between one thing and another, the Peanut Advisory Board reports that sales have doubled over the last 25 years. Americans eat more peanut butter than any other people in the world--nearly four and a half 12-ounce jars per person per year.

A Dud-Free Milestone

It’s also the 25th anniversary of Orville Redenbacher’s hybrid popping corn. Best wishes, Orville, and this might be a very good occasion to spring for a new necktie.

Porky Pumps Up

Pork has had this image problem, so over the last 10 years breeders have created a New Pig for a leaner New Age, aiming for lower-fat porkers and providing them with carefully controlled diets. Even more credit, says University of Missouri Extension swine specialist Ron Bates, goes to butchers, who are trimming these leaner pigs more severely. A South Dakota State University researcher recently traveled around the country buying pork in big-city supermarkets and found that it averaged 44% less fat than the USDA reported in 1983.

At the same time that pigs are being raised leaner, meat processors want them to be larger because they want to give consumers the same-size cuts they did 10 years ago, so today’s pig is 20 pounds heavier. But that’s solid muscle, pally. Go ahead, punch a pig in the stomach. Come on, give it your best shot.

A Bold Step Backward

The Garlic Smash, available in many gourmet stores, is a return to either the Stone Age or the ‘60s, a Totally Natural kitchen utensil consisting of a smooth, flattened stone and a circular wooden block. It makes a lot of sense, actually. Garlic presses give you garlic that is not exactly pureed but more or less riced. In a mortar you can pound garlic to a paste, but you spend a lot of time chasing the slippery cloves around with the pestle. Out on this block they can’t get away, and you can rock the, well, rock around and squash them to garlic paste with surprising efficiency.

Eco-Eats

In Seattle, a company called EnvirOmints is selling chocolate wafers stamped with the images of six endangered wildlife species. The symbolism of eating an endangered animal is peculiar, but EnvirOmints promises to donate half its profits to environmental causes once its initial debt is erased.

Meanwhile, in Marin, Fantastic Tempura reports that it has reformulated its tempura batter mix with organically grown whole wheat, brown rice and corn flours and that its package is now printed on recycled board with non-polluting inks. When we dip our high-calorie, high-cholesterol shrimp in this tempura batter and deep-fry them in mass quantities of oil, we shall do so with consciences as clear as a summer sky.

Lonely Palates

“How can single gourmets meet other single connoisseurs?” asks the leaflet. “One answer is Gourmets & Friends. This new service is designed to discreetly introduce single gourmets and other friends of good food everywhere.”

Gourmets & Friends, P.O. Box 11652, Houston, Tex. 77293, is intended, as the leaflet says, “to provide single gourmets with information needed to reach out to others for possible friendships, romance and business contacts.” A fine endeavor, surely, though what, exactly, are singles business contacts?

Sweet Teeth

Natural snack sales rose 22% in 1989, reports “Progressive Grocer.” Pretty good, since candy sales have taken five years to rise 19% per capita and soft drink sales nearly 10 to rise 40%. The average American now consumes 46.6 gallons of soft drinks and 19.7 pounds of candy a year.

Tan and Fit to Eat

Imported pistachios have always been dyed red, originally to distinguish them from other nuts when they were sold in vending machines. California pistachios are sold undyed to distinguish them from the foreign ones.