We Can’t Get No Respect

A while back the British magazine Taste ran an article about favorite English foods--several of which are actually American (Heinz Tomato Ketchup, a big seller in England since 1886; Horlick’s malted milk, which Taste did not mention was invented over here; and Jacobs Cream Crackers, whose deviser visited this country in 1884 to discover the Yankee secret of cracker-making).

They Eat Turtle Cereal, Don’t They?

When is vegetable soup not ( eeoo ! yucko!) vegetable soup? The answer, hopes the Campbell’s company: when there’s extinct saurian pasta in it. Their theory is that kids will go for Dinosaur Vegetable Soup.

Hi, Everybody

In light of rapidly changing conditions, this Soviet drink recipe (from Robert Littell’s novel “An Agent in Place”) may one day be a nostalgia item: “You mix in rice, you mix in sugar if you can find sugar, saccharin if not, you mix in some fruit . . . . You add beer, you add warm water, you cover the jar with a rubber surgeon’s glove. As the mixture ferments, the glove inflates.” When all five fingers are sticking up, “the Great Helmsman’s Greeting” is ready to drink.

Slim Piggin’s

The same Auburn University scientists who designed McLean beef have developed a low-fat pork sausage: 114 calories per two-ounce link as against 210 in regular sausage. It uses the same seaweed-derived texture agent, but since Auburn didn’t do this one for McDonald’s, it named it after itself: AU Lean.

As Long as We Know Our Priorities

The biggest supermarket sales gainer of last year was toaster pastries (up 22.85%). Incidentally, the combined $27 billion we spent on bakery goods, soft drinks and cigarettes was just over the $26.8 billion we spent on produce.

All the News That’s Proper

Now there is a specific little plastic gadget to hold a fried taco shell upright for filling and serving. At $8.99 for eight of them, TacoPropers (available from TacoProper Co., (415) 256-8754) aren’t exactly cheap, but if you’re the sort of person who already owns a fish slice and asparagus tongs, you might not be able to do without them.

Another Hall of Fame Heard From

Let’s hear it for Robert Hulvat, senior candy buyer for Woolworth’s, who has just been elected to the Candy Hall of Fame by National Confectionery Salesmen’s Assn.