While perusing a box of Noodle-Roni the other night, I noticed that on one side was the cryptic message “Reg. Penna. Dept. Agr." Curious, I checked the rest of the larder and found any number of food packages with the same note somewhere on the label. We suspect it has something to do with the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture, but we couldn’t figure out why they would be meddling with Noodle-Roni in California. An explanation is in order. — M. & M. Weston, San Diego

Comin’ right up. One explanation, hold the anchovies. I assume you noticed that, for the most part, any packaged foods that have been heated or precooked in some way bear the offending graffiti. Chips, cookies, crackers, cereal — and even things that don’t begin with C, like Noodle-Roni, all have to be made in factories that meet certain standards before they can be sold in the state of Pennsylvania. The law dates back to the mid-1930s, when newfangled, pre-baked items began creeping onto store shelves. Maybe Pennsylvanians are naturally more suspicious than the rest of us, but for whatever reason the state passed a law saying that if manufacturers were going to fob off on the public factory-made doughnuts, then by golly they were going to have to make sure the factory is as clean as Grandma’s kitchen, and when the package claimed to hold a pound of cookies, it didn’t weigh only 14 ounces. So to sell their products legally in Pennsylvania, each factory has to be inspected by state authorities (or persons authorized by the state) and has to be “Registered with the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture.” The message appears on packages all over the world because when the factory cranks out a box of Cheerios, f'rinstance, there’s no telling where it will end up — maybe Pennsylvania, maybe Albania. It’s more efficient to bewilder Californians with “Reg. Penna. Dept. Agr." than to print a special label just for Pennvslvania-bound products.