In ancient times, food was marketed primarily by "hunger." But in the modern era, it's not enough that we eat our food, we must also emotionally bond with it. This partly explains the enduring appeal of food mascots, those bright, colorful, affable characters who beckon us to consume.

In many cases, we choose a product simply because we have a bizarre attachment to the cartoon that represents it. There is no shame in trusting, say, a paranoid Leprechaun with a powerful marshmallow lust more than one's own family. These 10 icons are the awesomest in the pantheon of cheap food branding.

Momofuku Milk Bar Volcano Photo: Kat Kinsman

A few of the best stories spied elsewhere on the Web this week:

A new study from the University of South Carolina finds comfort food not as comforting as you'd think.

A snacking-while-driving invention makes talking on your cell phone while driving seem positively safe and sound.

Despite the recession, consumers are still willing to shell out as much as $999 per person to rub shoulders with celeb chefs at food festivals across the nation.

David Chang, of Momofuku fame, may open a Milk Bar in Georgetown.

More Americans are starting small farms, sometimes called 'hobby' or 'lifestyle' farms, which provide much of the food found at the nation's farmers' markets and roadside stands.

Now you can get your candy fix and your rock on with Kiss-branded M&M's.

Le Bernardin reservations out of your reach? Chef Eric Ripert launched a wine club, giving the average Joe access to his vino-expertise and recipe pairings to use at home.

Julia Child's 10 best bon mots. Photo: Chow

Chow sums up its 10 favorite Julia-isms in time for tonight's release of "Julie and Julia". Our fave? "When a sommelier asked her to name her favorite wine, she replied, 'Gin.'"

Holy adorableness, Batman: Bakerella's pie pops.

Bill Keller, editor of the New York Times, jumps on the Diner's Journal blog to weigh in on the non-anonymity of new critic Sam Sifton.

Freakishly beautiful Meneghini refrigerators, via Apartment Therapy.

Speaking of John Hughes, over at sibling site Moviefone they've summed up the 10 best cinematic moments in eating.

BoingBoing finds a great Snopes article about Van Halen trashing a concert venue after finding forbidden brown M&M's in the backstage area. Apparently David Lee Roth used the candies as a litmus test of a venue.

Just last week we had Arby's buying up Wendy's and this week, we learn that Mars (maker of M&M's and Snickers) has purchased Wrigley's (maker of Juicy Fruit and Lifesavers). Money-making expert Warren Buffet has his hand in the deal that has brought two of the nation's most storied (and, until now, family-owned) confectionary companies together.

I wonder how the residents of Chicago are feeling, having their long-time gum and candy company purchased and potentially moved. Any comment from the windy city locals?

In Times Square one of the most noticeable landmarks is the Hershey's company store, where you can pick up chocolates, chocolate-themed toys and more chocolates. But Hershey's is about to have some competition because Mars, Inc. has opened its own store just across the street. The rival chocolate company's store, M&M's World, is 25,000 sq. ft., larger than the existing Hershey's store, and has a huge selection of M&Ms-themed stuff. In addition to the world's largest display of M&Ms candies, the store features a 21-foot Miss Green M&M dressed up as Lady Liberty and a M&M's(R) color mood analyzer, which should clear up any of those middles school rumors about the differences between red, yellow and green M&Ms.

This is actually the third M&M's World store, as one opened in Las Vegas in 1997 and another in Orlando just about one year ago. A spokesman said that they didn't intend to be across from the Hershey's store, although it's pretty clear that they weren't worried about the competition. He said, "We wanted to be in New York, we wanted to be in Times Square, and then we wanted to be in the best location we could find. Coincidentally, that happened to be across the street from another chocolate brand."

Partially influenced by low prices and partially by the fact that I rationalize by saying I could use any leftovers up in a recipe, I always buy a few too many bags of candy around this time of year. In particular, I like to buy the seasonally-colored candies, like holiday M&Ms or, in this case, Halloween/Fall Kissables. Instead of their usually rainbow-colored shells, the candies are all coated in orange and yellow.

Kissables have a crisp candy shell, and fall halfway between the size of a regular chocolate chip and a Hershey's kiss, so the crunch is quite substantial. They work very well in cookies, since most chocolate chip cookie recipes make a fairly chewy cookie and the crunch is a great addition to the overall texture. These particular cookies are buttery, crispy on the edges and slightly chewy in the center, though the will soften slightly after a day or two. If you don't want to use Kissables, M&Ms or any other similarly sized candy (cut up candy bars, etc) will work, too.

Read on for the recipe.

My M&Ms is the name of the custom printed candies that M&Ms has been selling for quite some time, now. With other chocolates, such as Hershey Kissables, branching into their candy-coated niche, M&Ms is looking to expand their offerings somewhat by using their custom candies.

M&Ms plans to offer a wider-range of pre-printed candies in stores, for holidays and other occasions, to tempt buyers. To encourage larger orders of custom slogans and colors, they are also launching a plan called "My Branding." They intend to aggressively market to companies to order the customized candies in bulk, since with the company's logo printed on the shell, they would make excellent party favors or corporate gifts. They will ask make neat little reminders in stores or business if simply left out for clients to take. After oohing and aahing at the tiny, custom logos, customers will probably leave with a smile and a satisfied sweet tooth. And they might just be back for more.

Maybe more business plans should involve candy.

One of the reasons that nutritionists often recommend that you write down everything you eat is that people tend to underestimate how much they're consuming. Those extra calories, whether 10 or 100 per day, can add up over time if your physical activity levels don't change much. And, unfortunately, those 10 calories can be made up by as something as small as a few grapes and translate into a weight gain of about 1 pound per year. To avoid this, try to be honest about how much you eat and pay attention to what you're eating, even when it's "just one" of something. To give you can idea of how many calories those "ones" can have, here are a few from the Seattle Times:

• One Pringles potato chip - 10 cal
• One McDonald's french fry - 5 cal
• One grape tomato - 1 cal
• One green seedless grape - 4 cal
• One M&M - 4.3 cal
• One Jelly Belly - 4 cal
• One broccoli floret - 0.8 cal
• One baby carrot - 1.25 cal
• One cashew - 8.5 cal

For the last year or two, give or take, M&Ms Australia has been selling white chocolate M&Ms. I like white chocolate, but I wouldn’t ordinarily go out of my way to pick some up and I didn't expect to like these when I first saw them. A few pieces later and I was hooked. They have the same, familiar candy shell as the classic milk chocolate candies, but lighter in color and filled with a smooth white chocolate. The chocolate was very creamy and made a perfect contrast to the crisp coating. They were a bit sweeter than regular M&Ms, but they were also more satisfying.

Much to my chagrin, the M&Ms Australia discontinued them and I was left without a source. Until now, that is, since Joe posted yesterday about the American release of white chocolate M&Ms! This pretty much confirms my suspicions that the Australian release was part of some test-marketing scheme for the US-based company and I’m glad to see that they’re bringing them back.

[Photo by Nicole Weston]