BITES : Dairy Drunk

We laugh when we hear that Central Asian nomads drink kumiss, a sort of wine made from fermented milk. Ho ho, we say, bet you can get really hammered on that yogurt beer.

Well, some weeks ago the Swedish newspaper Expressen reported that a farmer opened his barn and found his 2,500 pigs staggering, fighting or passed out. Their feed, milk residue from a nearby dairy, had fermented into kumiss, more or less.

Gas Pain

Some Taiwanese fish dealers have been treating tilapia intended for the Japanese market with carbon monoxide, because it gives the fish a bright pink color like the prized, and expensive, red bream. Japanese government inspectors discovered the CO residue in the fish, though, and the Japanese public has started demanding “gas-free” tilapia from other countries.

Are You Sure There’s No Meat Product in This Pillowcase?

Vegetarian Travelers is a full-color bi-monthly magazine providing information on inexpensive vegetarian-oriented places to eat (and sleep and play, it says here) all over the world. Just finding vegetarian food is enough of a challenge in a lot of countries, but the managers insist that their focus is equally on adventuresome travel. Says managing editor Kate Ryan, an eight-year vegan, “Chance is part of the traveling routine; what separates tourists from travelers is the willingness to let the wind take them off the beaten track.”

Both Ryan and executive editor J. Rubino have traveled to Graceland. “Everything about our magazine,” says Rubino, “can be summed up in a simple phrase: Veggie-a-Go-Go.” Vegetarian Travelers has an address--P.O. Box 2202, New Orleans, LA 70176--and an e-mail address: VegTrav@aol.com.

Oh. OK, Never Mind

Here’s an encouraging tax season story. Italian tax police accused Claudio Boccotti, owner of Zorutti restaurant in Udine, northeastern Italy, of tax evasion because he deducted laundry expenses for many more napkins than meals served (a total of 17,000 in 1990), but Boccotti beat the charge.

The clinching argument: “Our specialty is lobster, which you have to eat with your fingers,” one member of the staff testified April 5.