Here Comes Yummy

With the Yummy-Yummy Talking Spoon and Fork, Ocean Shore Toys hopes to speed up the process of getting strained pears into fussy infants. When you press a button, the battery-operated spoon says disarming things such as “Open wide, here comes yummy!” or “Hey, that tickles! You’re so silly!” (And speaking of silly, watch for Brushy-Brushy, the Musical Singing Toothbrush, later this fall.) Yummy-Yummy is $11.95 at Kids Central USA and Lionel Leisure stores, among others.

Discovered: Italian Recipes

To mark the Columbus Quincentennial, Molinari Sambuca is giving away a brochure of the favorite dishes of Italian-Americans such as Ben Gazzara, Henry Mancini, Tommy Lasorda and Mario Andretti. Write to Molinari Sambuca Extra, 35 East 21st St., 4th Floor, New York, N.Y. 10010.

And Pretty Good Hot Dogs Too

We know surimi, the processed-fish product, mostly as imitation crab (Americans now eat more “krab” every year than crab), but you can make just about anything from it--in Japan, they make surimi hot dogs. Most surimi is made from pollock, but the declining pollock catch in the Bering Sea may one day force food processors to use other fish for surimi . . . or maybe even beef. University of Illinois researchers say beef surimi has better texture and is more temperature-stable than fish-based surimi and might make terrific krab.

Don’t Worry--It’s Not Butter, Just Fat

Xiomara Restaurant in Pasadena stars certain dishes on its new Country/Bistro menu to indicate that they don’t contain cream or butter. But in starring terrine with foie gras and cassoulet with slab bacon, pork ribs and sausage, it seems not to have quite grasped the point.

The Alien Corn

The Wall Street Journal reports that researchers are testing tropical varieties of corn because they’re resistant to drought and insects. They have one drawback, though: Tropical corn is used to days that are the same length all year. It gets disoriented in our long summer days and winds up growing 16 or 18 feet high.

Alien to Cornwall

The Cornish pasty is a traditional convenience food: meat and potatoes baked in a crust. But these days Cousin Jenny’s Cornish Pasties in Traverse City, Mich., offers nouvelle pasties--”quiche” (cheese, ham, broccoli and bell pepper) and “Italian” (pepperoni, mozzarella and tomato sauce filling).