"No matter how beautiful its carmine and orange stalks, the sight of a bunch of chard in my organic bag always makes my heart sink." -- Nigel Slater, The Kitchen Diaries


A boyfriend once told me that if I ever wanted to make him cry, I could serve him scrambled eggs on a Wednesday night in the winter. I had no particular interest in making him cry (though that changed later on...), of course, but I asked him why. He wasn't especially keen to elaborate, but it had something to do with childhood, and his mother having choir practice, and his now-estranged father taking over kitchen duties the only way he knew how.


My best friend's husband is only now, at 35, accepting small wisps of mayo on his sandwiches after an incident 25 years ago involving his older, stronger brother, a spatula, and a family-sized jar of Hellmann's. My own grandfather, the child of immigrants who settled in a small Pennsylvania town, refused garlic for the first several decades of his life for fear of, in his words, "smelling Italian". It breaks my heart to know that, and it absolutely underscores the massive emotional impact that certain foods can have on us.


Food is uniquely powerful in that besides our multi-sensory involvement with it, it also becomes part of us. While other aesthetic details -- songs, smells, etc., may imprint themselves on our memories of situations both joyful and otherwise, they're not as likely to, well, make you feel like you're gonna hurl. It goes deeper than an aversion to taste or scent or mouth-feel. Food certainly warms the soul, but it can also make it heave.


My trigger food? Tuna-noodle casserole. And no, I don't wanna talk about it.


What are the foods that hit you where you live? Let it out in the comments -- we're here for you.

We talked about chocolate-covered ants once before, but when we did, I got the impression that we were considering the tiny little guys that crawl around the patio and that end up in movies, not the so-called big-butt queen ants that are making an entry onto the gourmet foods market. "The first loud crackle tastes and feels like popcorn, but by the time the juices spray wildly in your mouth and the filament-like legs slide down your throat, there's no mistaking this toasted ant queen."

Filament-like legs? Spraying juices? Thanks - but no thanks.

These insects, called hormiga culona, are popular in Colombia, where they are gathered, and thought to have medicinal properties, including acting as an aphrodisiac and as a defense against cancer. There, they are often toasted and salted, though restaurants in the area they are harvested offer ant-spreads and ant-based sauces for their dishes. They are often given away, as the ants are not only a traditional food, but a part of the culture.

I debated whether to title this post as "food porn" or something worthy of being on Fear Factor. I'm a big fan of the food blog Matt Bites, since not only am I always happy to see another Los Angeles area food blogger, but Matt writes well and takes outstanding photos. He can be a bit daring, to say the least, when it comes to food. When snails were munching away in his garden, he decided to take advantage of his little (albeit unintended) herd and to "farm" them, preparing them to be part of a meal. Read his whole post about the experience to learn more about farming and eating backyard snails. Actually, it might even be a better read if you have no intention of ever eating snails, just so you don't feel like you're missing out.

One of the most interesting parts of the post is also the most, for lack of a better word, icky. So, to see what the snails looked like after coming out of the boiling water, click past the jump. And, as fair warning, snail entrails are not for the faint of heart.