No 3596 Set by Leonora CasementYou were asked for some new GM foods.

Report by Ms de Meaner

News from the postbag: Nick MacKinnon wrote to let us know that his "I am the very model of a new millennial poetess" (comp 3577) has been read out on Radio 4. Well done! We were also contacted by a comper ("call me thick, but . . . ") who wrote to ask the identity of Anne Du Croz's "well-known person" in comp 3594. Here are some clues: called Charles, ginger hair, red face, can look a bit piggy in photos, something to do with the Lib Dems, composing his first "leader's letter", waiting for Her Majesty . . . And no, sir, you're perfectly right: it's not Prince Charles. Hon menshes to Du Croz for her "sing-as-you-go slimming bananas" and Katie Mallett for her chicken with the basket (a gene from salix caprea means it grows twigs rather than feathers on its legs). £15 to the winners; the bottle goes to John Riddell.

Turbo: Modified turbot which, when added to other dishes, makes housewives think that they cook more quickly. The prototype was known as the Talbot but was not successful.

Zuchini: An even more tasteless version of the zucchini that has proved very popular with Scrabble players.

Gaelic: A macho, onion-sized garlic for Scottish people who don't want to ponce around with fancy French cooking.

Omo cube: Subtracts flavour from casseroles, especially effective against Gaelic.

Dog Pavlova: When you ring the bell the dog jumps into its meringue basket and you start to salivate. Then you eat it.

Chimera: Animal with a lion's head, a goat's body and a serpent's tail.

McChimera: Fast-food chimera formerly known as Big Mac.

Jurassic pork: Cloned dinosaur meat. Tastes just like pork but, since the genes are pre-Leviticus, it is guaranteed kosher.

Nick MacKinnon

Free-range carrots

You know how carrots sometimes have limb-like appendages? Well, GM growers in China have produced a variety that invariably sports four, endowed with motor properties, so the carrots use them for locomotion. Specimens with a fifth appendage, suitably placed, are prized for their supposed aphrodisiac properties.

The carrots are best eaten absolutely fresh, so grow (or rear?) them in your garden. A bed a couple of yards square is enough, fenced with fine wire mesh. When the carrots disinter themselves and move briskly around the pen, they are ready. Gather them with a shrimping net. In China, the carrots are usually topped and put straight into boiling, salted water, or stir-fried in a wok, and are considered cooked when they stop moving. For squeamish westerners, an ultrasound stunner will soon be available.

Gourmets with unusual sang-froid may want to try grating the carrots raw for salads. Their mobility persists during and after grating, so you have to keep spooning them off the table and back into the bowl. If you try this, please let me know how it feels to swallow, and afterwards.

John Riddell

The self-basting tomato-pumpkin hybrid, or tompkin, is a meal in itself. With a diameter of one foot, it will safely fit in a family oven, where it will bake steadily inside its sturdy red skin before being carried to the waiting table. After cooling, the warm juice may be drunk through special tompkin pipettes (or tompkinettes) before slicing or wedging. These pieces are often served with lettucino, an Italian invention which consists of cheesy, green vegetable strips. Tompkin slices are also a great accompaniment for the new fish dish, mushy scallops, made from shellfish bred to soften into the consistency of a fool. Scallop fools (or GM scools, as they are known) are ideal dips and have been given special status by the government. The government has also given its backing to a meat dish combining bull and hare (blair), pig and mole (mowlam) and a specially modified junket with extra vitamins (blunkett with dobs on). This is a particularly exciting and tasty boar which has had its brain cells enhanced (cunningham). Civil servants are also known to be working on a twiglet with a shelf-life of 17 years. This economy measure has been instigated by the Chancellor himself.

Will Bellenger

Much of the food at Frank Instein's, the groundbreaking new Soho restaurant, can speak for itself, doing away with the need for menus and dinner companions at a stroke. But there is more to this genetically modified cuisine than talkative prawn cocktails. Worm genes in the spaghetti mean it can wrap itself around your fork, translucent albino cucumbers taste stranger than they look, and you can choose from a selection of celebrity steaks, each imbued with the DNA of a famous personality (Bernard Manning the night I went). Some dishes need perfecting - the fish-flavoured tomatoes and weeping seafood platter was more novelty act than nouvelle cuisine - but this is a restaurant that has something for everyone. Kids will love picking fishcakes live from the tank, while older diners will appreciate the range of dishes designed to dissolve into easily digestible mush within seconds of serving. And with science advancing apace, it's only a matter of months before joints of meat will be grown in vats while you wait. Now that's what I call fast food!

Adrian Fry

No 3599 Set by George Cowley

According to the geologist Tony Cooper, the inspiration for Alice's "falling sensation was not a white rabbit with a waistcoat and a watch, it was the combination of geology, water and gypsum". Or rather, subsidence. Inspired by this, we have decided to ask for short, updated fairy tales. To be in by 7 October.

E-mail: comp@newstatesman.co.uk

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