Green Bones? Yechhh!

A couple of weeks ago we reported that ono fish can sometimes leap from the water and endanger fishermen with their sharp teeth. Reader W.L. Klawe of La Jolla, Calif., weighs in with some perfectly horrifying stories about the needlefish, a slim, three-foot-long cousin of the flying fish that often leaps out of the water like a dart, stabbing the unsuspecting. The Tahitians even have a superstition that a man shouldn’t fish for aavere after fighting with his wife, or that’ll be the night he gets it. Klawe concludes that needlefish are good eating, though many people avoid them because of their green bones.

In Favor of the Flavr Savr

Attacks on genetically engineered foods such as the Flavr Savr tomato get a lot of press. If you’d like to read the case for them, write to Food Biotechnology, P.O. Box 1144, Rockville, Md. 20850 and ask for a copy of the International Food Information Council Foundation pamphlet “Food Biotechnology--Health and Harvest for Our Times”; include a self-addressed stamped envelope.

Bee Well and Prosper

Buzzy’s Tropica is a line of Malaysian fruit preserves (passion fruit, star fruit, mango, guava, papaya), all prepared without water using only the fruit juices and Malaysian sugar. Its symbol, a bee named Buzzy, is the creation of founder Clarine Sturgis, who seems harmless but perhaps a little too Buzzy. It’s said she sometimes speaks in a Buzzy voice and has designed her own Buzzy costume. Good, resonably priced preserves, anyway. In Vons, Hughes, Lucky’s, Smith’s and Albertson’s markets.

Bag News

It’s hard to imagine now, but there was a time when people had to bring their own shopping bags to the store. The first paper bag wasn’t patented until 1852, and the familiar square-bottomed bag dates only from the 1880s.

A Bag o’ Beets

Underwood Ranches, a fourth-generation Ventura County outfit, has started marketing cooked beets-- fresh , not canned, cooked beets--in 9-ounce vacuum-sealed plastic bags. These are babyish beets, walnut-sized or smaller, and they really do have the sweetness, flavor and crunch of freshly cooked beets, without the trouble and mess. In refrigerated cases at Hughes, Albertson’s, Lucky’s and Bristol Farms.

Noted With Pleasure

The assistant director of the test kitchens of the National Live Stock & Meat Board is named Susan Lamb Parenti.