Souper Saddam

We all saw Saddam Hussein cooking lamb soup for his army on New Year’s Eve, but of course that couldn’t have been the end of the story. As soon as the TV segment aired, fellow dictators all over the world must have been ringing Saddam’s phone off the hook for the recipe. “We feel like such a bunch of jerks,” they probably told him. “We’ve only been handing out trail mix and sproutburgers for New Year’s. But golly, if our boys could just get some lamb soup in them--whoa, Nellie!”

A Beer That’s Really Filling

The next phase for chocolate makers is apparently going to be exotic fillings: coffee, tea (with either milk or lemon), cheesecake paste, even red wine. First out of the gate is Dios, a white chocolate candy with a filling of sweetened, solidified beer.

An Early Clue to the New Direction?

McDonald’s is testing a non-burger restaurant concept in Hartsville, Tenn. The Golden Arch Cafe sounds like one of the jukebox-’50s Diner Revival restaurants that were popping up all over a couple of years ago: It has a salisbury steak/fried catfish menu.

Take a Pepsi Breakfast

It looks as though we’ll never get to try Pepsi A.M., a breakfast cola with 25% extra caffeine. The main reason it flopped in test marketing, said a representative of the BevMark consulting firm, was that though Americans--particularly those younger than 25--have no problem drinking cola at breakfast, they are uneasy about buying it just for that purpose: “They really don’t want it thrown in their faces as a substitute for milk and orange juice.”

More Extra Caffeine

Caffeine is still king on the Japanese soft drink market, reveals Business Tokyo Magazine. Coca Cola’s best-selling product in Japan is Georgia, a brand of canned coffee. Jolt Cola, which boasts twice the caffeine of regular colas, hasn’t done so well in this country but it has 5.8% of the Japanese cola market.

Con Cooking a Growth Industry

“Riding a dramatic increase in America’s prison population,” writes Nation’s Restaurant News, “correctional feeding has blossomed into a $1 billion market nationwide.” One company, Szabo Correctional Services, grew 40% in the last year alone.

Motor City Cuisine

Detroit reports a fashion for “muffin chips,” which are said to be essentially overbaked muffins. What next? Biscuit chips? Pita chips? Tortilla chips? (Hold on, we already have those.)

An Early Clue to the New Direction?

McDonald’s is testing a non-burger restaurant concept in Hartsville, Tenn. The Golden Arch Cafe sounds like one of the jukebox-’50s Diner Revival restaurants that were popping up all over a couple of years ago: salisbury steak with mashed potato, fried catfish and so on.