FOOD TRIVIA

Licking a regular size, multicolor stamp delivers .007 calories. A larger commemorative, such as *Elvis*, has .014 calories.

Hershey's Kisses are called that because the machine that makes them looks like it's kissing the conveyor belt.

Researchers at Harvard University, spurred by an urban myth, tested the effectiveness of Coca-Cola as a spermicide. The result: Diet Coke worked a little, but not well enough to qualify as a new form of birth control.

Survey: 14% of those responding make milk part of their sex lives.

Derrick Johnson of Newport Beach, California was fired from his stock clerk job in a supermarket because he talked to USA Today about his membership in the Poultry Bowling Association. Johnson and fellow clerks on the night shift used frozen turkeys to bowl over "pins" - two liter soft drink bottles.

In August of 1993, the Economic Evening News of Taiyuan, China, reported that a woman in her thirties, unidentified in the story, had eaten more than 800 rubber nipples from baby bottles in the last three years. A province health official said all family members apparently liked the smell of rubber.

The electric pickle is an experiment that was a tremendous success in freshman electronics class. You go to a deli, see, and get a big kosher dill pickle, seven or eight inches long. Then you cut the cord of an old electric appliance and strip the ends to expose two or three inches of split wire. (Unplug it first.) Get two two- or three-inch nails, wrap one strand of wire around each nail, and stick the nails into the pickle. Then plug in the cord. "After about ten seconds the pickle will light up, glowing and crackling. It's really quite bright. You can try it at home," says Franklin, "but don't touch the pickle."