Endangered food tastes better

The Los Angeles Times took a break from gloom and doom to make fun of two brothers.

Yep, just two regular brothers. Well, one is a marine scientist who saves sea life, and the other is a gourmet food critic who delights in eating sea life -- sometimes while it's still wiggling.

Leave it to the Times to find such a hilariously ironic and completely obscure juxtaposition and then write it in a way that makes you giggle, even as your property taxes go up.

Behold:

Mark Gold, the esteemed marine scientist and president of Heal the Bay, knew it was only a matter of time before his older brother, Jonathan Gold, the equally esteemed Pulitzer Prize-winning food critic, would pick up a set of chopsticks and commit the ultimate act of fraternal betrayal.

"From his perspective, if you've already eaten Jamaican goat penis, what's wrong with whale?" Mark asked.

Jonathan -- reached on his cellphone this week while eating puffer fish at Dae Bok in Koreatown -- first corrected his ever-tut-tutting brother:

"It was Vietnamese goat penis."

Look, he added, he doesn't promote eating whale. And it's not as if the whale was harpooned in Santa Monica Bay.

He happened to be in South Korea, coming out of a whale museum, when, perhaps ironically, he came upon a row of whale restaurants. A man whose curious palate once led him to eat a live prawn as it glared back at him, antennae spiraling in fear, he knew he had to try. In his words: "It was there."

And, he concluded, it was delectable.

This is only funny until Mark goes after Jonathan with a harpoon. But that hasn't happened yet, so feel free to laugh a little longer.