PROTEIN BITES AND ANIMAL RITES

I found it amusing that the only comments (Letters, June 9) you printed in response to S. Irene Virbila’s Top 40 restaurants article (“Return of the Top 40,” April 28) were from a pair of San Fernando Valley and Westside animal-rights zealots.

Oh, pity the poor lobster’s anguished cry as it plunges into crustacean purgatory. And let us lament the goose’s cackle as it and its liver are parted.

Come on, people, look around you. Have you nothing better to be concerned with? Perhaps The Times should reward these rubber-soled (or is it souled?) loonies with an expense- paid trip to the last cannibal island in the South Pacific. Then, as they stand by the simmering caldron, they’ll fully understand their host’s comment: “Fear not, dear petaphiles; they are also served who stand and wait.”

Leonard S. Frank

Los Angeles

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It may be unwise, but it is not immoral to enjoy sweetbreads, juicy veal chops and wild game, despite reader Harriet Klein’s feelings on the subject. Actually, I am grateful to Virbila, because she knows the difference between good food and bad, and she has the good sense to realize that it isn’t necessary to spend $50 for dinner in order to eat well.

Jennie Douglas

Long Beach

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The Letters page contained marvelous illustrations of how difficult it has become to enjoy certain personal pleasures, even though they don’t violate either civil or religious law. First an advertising firm is castigated for advertising milk (negative health implications). Next a restaurant critic is lambasted for speaking positively about rich foods (horrendously immoral). Finally, restaurants that serve meat are called on the carpet (torture and suffering). When did we get to be so sanctimonious and judgmental? Can we stop, please?

Ellen Polsky

Long Beach