The Unkindest Slice of All

The nation’s Yellow Pages now list more pizzerias than burger places, which may be why McDonald’s is test-marketing a pizza line. Pizza Hut has been fighting back vigorously in the test markets, though, with ads calling the McDonald’s pizza a “McStake.” One TV spot has a woman saying the McPizza “sounds like something my ex-husband would eat.”

I Can Tell If It’s Been Cut With Oregano

A Rhode Island pizza parlor was found in January to have been delivering not only pizza but marijuana.

Fresh Groundburgerscq

Cuba recently opened 10 government-owned hamburger stands. Unfortunately, the opening coincided with a media blitz praising Cuba’s giant strides in earthworm farming, and the government immediately had to deny rumors that the burgers were made of ground worms.

Git Along, Big Birdie

Food columnist Merle Ellis writes that there may be a low-fat ostrich fillet in your future. Whereas a cow can produce one calf a year for about 10 years, an ostrich hen can lay 40 to 70 eggs a year, yielding three or four times as much meat . . . for 40 years. The problem (apart from accustoming ourselves to eating ostriches, rather than just seeing them in political cartoons) is that there will have to be a quarter million ostriches in the country--about 16 times as many as there are now--before prices come down to supermarket level. (At the moment, a 3-month-old chick will set you back $3,000; breeding hens are $40,000 and up.) If you’d like information on the ostrich industry, Ellis says to contact Bill Reed at the Flying Dutchman Ostrich Co., 9832 Flower St., Suite 321, Bellflower, Calif. 90706.

An Inventor Passes

Deceased at his home in Paris, Jan. 19: Jean Mantelet, who invented a potato-mashing machine for his wife in 1933 and thus founded the Moulinex company; at the age of 90, one month after retiring.

Eating to Win

Three nights before the Super Bowl, the eight-man New York Giants offensive line downed the following at Bern’s Steak House in Tampa: 11 pounds of lobster, 15 pounds of steak, 25 pounds of side dishes and a $400 bottle of ’61 Chateau Margaux. Line coach Fred Hoaglin told the Boston Herald, “I wanted them to experience real quality food so they would play real quality football.” As the world knows, it worked: The Giants edged the Buffalo Bills 20-19.

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