A Dark Suit

Two of London’s top restaurateurs are preparing to do battle in court over a suggestion that one of them upset a diner by making a squid ink dish with fountain pen ink. According to Reuters wire service, the onetime bad boy of London’s cooking elite, Marco Pierre White, claims fellow restaurant boss Tony Allan defamed his reputation as a chef by reporting the alleged prank to a tabloid newspaper.

Pierre White, the youngest British chef to win three Michelin stars, last year also won a libel case against the New York Times and the International Herald Tribune over an article that suggested he had “a well-publicized bout with drugs and alcohol.”

At the center of this year’s dispute are remarks reportedly made by Allan in an interview in the Mirror, a British tabloid, in August 1998. Allan alleged that Pierre White once--”as a joke”--served a customer--said to be a woman food writer--a dish of scallops and braised cuttlefish in which he substituted writing ink for squid ink.

Pork Chocs

A Ukrainian candy company has begun marketing what may be the stickiest, richest and most fattening treat on the market: pure pork fat covered in chocolate. Cracking open a finger-sized stick of the dark chocolate bar reveals a vein of white fat where other candies conceal butterscotch, caramel or other traditional sweets. According to the Associated Press, the candies are called “Fat in Chocolate.”

The product pokes fun at the traditional Ukrainian snack of salo, or salted pork fat, usually consumed with vodka and pickles. Salo is a national symbol of Ukraine and is recognized throughout the former Soviet Union, though younger Ukrainians often turn up their noses at the dish these days.

The bars, wrapped in red holiday foil, show a Ukrainian Cossack with a mustache munching a piece of fat. The candies sold briskly to laughing customers in stores in Ukraine’s capital, Kiev.