But for all the mockery, I'd always assumed that we only kid because we love. I mean, everyone grew up on Spam, right?

Right?

Turns out, no. In fact, in the office yesterday we asked if anyone had actually never tried Spam ... and the uninitiated doubled the deflowered. Where's the love for tinned luncheon meat? For the meat-ish loaf that dare not speak its name?

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It's a fruit whose aroma is so strong, so lingering, so reportedly similar to a gym-full of old socks (if you're lucky) or an unearthed cadaver (if you're not), it pushes all else aside when it enters the room. You will know if there is a durian present, and sooner or later, no matter where you go in the house, it will have taken over.

Airlines won't let you fly with it, Singapore's mass transit won't let you ride with it, and at least one hospital in the Philippines won't let you bring it in, even for a final wish.

And now I'm about to eat it.

I have, to be honest, avoided durian for years. I don't have many food hangups, but certain things stick with you, and my dad's wild-eyed terror of the stuff is so acute I developed a sympathetic fear of it myself.

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CRASHING HIGH END PARTIES JUST FOR THE SHRIMP?

TACO BELL TELLS SHRIMP CRASHERS TO DROP THE TUX AND TRY ITS SEASONAL PACIFIC SHRIMP TACOS AND BURRITOS

That's right, people! Ditch the tails and top hat you throw on every time you have a desire for ... the most commonly eaten seafood in America. (Er, it turns out Americans have eaten more shrimp than canned tuna since 2001. But that's because WE ARE ALL MILLIONAIRES ALL THE TIME YEAH!) Maybe I'm taking this sales pitch too literally! Let's keep reading:

The Rich Taste of Succulent Shrimp Returns to Taco Bell Without the Pricey Cost

It's no longer just about who you know - but knowing where to go. Starting this week, everyday foodies craving succulent shrimp can look past the nearest yacht party or invite-only gala, and turn to Taco Bell® for its Pacific Shrimp Taco and NEW Pacific Shrimp Burrito. Filled with tasty ingredients and shrimp marinated with chipotle seasonings, the limited-time menu items will satisfy mouth-watering hunger for shrimp - all while offering red-carpet taste for less green.

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I actually remember being handed a Red Bull at a party around then, taking a sip, and giving it back, thinking that I wanted to go out to have a good time, not to be punished. But apparently I wasn't on to something, because sales of energy drinks busted wide open, exploding 900 percent since then, to over $9 billion projected for 2011, even as doctors fret about what the hell is actually in this stuff.

(Here's a discouraging sign: "Because the beverages are classified as nutritional supplements, they have received much less scrutiny and are under fewer restrictions than both foods and drugs." Gee, yay!)

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I am an on-the-record lover of Biscoff cookies, the treats served on Delta Air Lines flights that have earned a cult following, if a cult following for an airplane snack can be said to exist. Light, fantastically crisp, just-sweet-enough and tasting of caramel and warm spices, they're like everything you've ever wanted in gingerbread or graham crackers.

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But they're going to be hot. I know this because Alex Van Buren, intrepid food media maven, e-mailed me about them a few weeks ago, and then Adam Rapoport, Bon Appétit magazine's manimal new editor in chief, tweeted about them not long after. (Presumably because he likes them, though it's also possible it's because they are the snack that look most like his manimalistic $800 Ralph Lauren wingtips.) This, friends, is how the food-trend sausage gets made.

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But before we start, a word on getting the "right" candy. Because let's face it: When it comes to getting a sexytime gift to your sexytime friend, there's 1) never really a bad time and 2) a pretty easy way of going about this -- you drop some real coin. You get truffles from the heavy hitters: Jacques Torres, Francois Payard, Gail Ambrosius, and if you're really fancy, La Maison du Chocolat or Oriol Balaguer. There are dozens more chocolate makers I could name here, because when it comes down to it, you're not going to go very wrong if you're buying from serious people. Yes, some are better than others, but what you're giving is a luxury, an indulgence, and is your honeypie ever really going to say, "Well, baby, I like these jasmine truffles from Kee's Chocolates, but it would've been better if you got me the more floral and complex cacao notes from Torres"? Because that person is no fun to have sexytime with anyway.

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So, anyway, haggis is a sheep's stomach filled with miscellaneous sheep parts -- heart, lungs, you get the picture. Stuff my Scottish friend Pam refers to as "the hearty meat," and I don't think that's a pun. Americans have not, for decades, been very big on organ meats, and so even though I grew up with liver and tongue and would eat tripe and spleen till the cows came home (to reclaim them?), for me, there's still some vestige of childhood blech that follows haggis around.

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But ginger ale is totally going to be the new hotness in Tastydrinklandia. I'm no trend mystic but reading the bubbles isn't hard. The pale Canada Dry type -- typified by that brand -- is what most everyone grew up with, but it's a wan version of the "golden" ginger ales that came before it and have survived to this day in the Caribbean and among stalwart soda holdouts. Golden ginger ales can pack tremendous flavor and wicked heat, the nostril-flaring steam of fresh ginger, and some even lace their formulas with essences of chile peppers for a little touch of that old capsicum magic.

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Now, thanks to chemist/bartender/soda historian Darcy O'Neil (yes, that is what he does for a living and no, I don't know if he's single), I have my grubby little hands on another palate-modifier, a symbolic doozy for the new year: a bitter blocker. Technically known as Adenosine 5'-Monophosphate, it's a compound that promises to prevent me from ever knowing bitterly the bitter taste of bitterness ever again. No more tears, no more jealousy, just clear sailing. It's like an antidepressant for your tongue, only without the suicidal thoughts and libido issues.

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But after decades of enjoying empanadas, turnovers and even the magical and beloved Hubig's pies of New Orleans, I was reminded today that my touchstone handpie will always be Drake's. Creators of Ring Dings and Devil Dogs, their art of mass-produced pastry knows no equal ... OK, that's kind of a lie. I'm not really a fan of their other products. But their cherry pies! Their cherry pies are like the bricks in heaven's castle.

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But every once in a while, the also-rans try an insurrection. Remember when Burger King embarrassed itself in the '90s with its new, "McDonald's-beating" fries that succeeded mainly in creeping customers out with their "clear coating of potato starch"? (BK didn't even make the top 10 on Brand Keys' list.)

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Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you: the Biscoff cookie. It's a speculoos, which, despite sounding like either a cartoon or a terrifying medieval medical device, is actually a traditional cookie in Belgium "used to celebrate weddings and births, to teach history, and to chronicle war in Europe." (Congratulations on reaching the end of the single most confusing sentence ever written about cookies.)

OK, so I have no idea what that means. But you don't have to know about Belgium's proud military past to enjoy these things, which taste beautifully and comfortingly of warm spices, caramel and wheat. (If you have no soul, you might say they're like graham crackers. You wouldn't be wrong, but why would you want to live a life with no romance?)

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It's been half a lifetime, of course, since I've had one, the McRib being like the lost Atlantis that, every once in a while, floats up from the bottom of the sea. It's available only in select stores for a few weeks at a time, a marketing ploy based on absence making the heart grow fonder and, perhaps, stronger: The patty gets an impressive 75 percent of its calories from fat, and marketers as savvy as McDonald's know it does them little good to actually kill off their customers right away.

But Ronald wheels out the McRib in all of his franchises every now and then, in moments of great cultural importance. Like in 1994, for a tie-in with the live-action Flintstones movie, dovetailing with memories of the giant rack of dino-ribs that tips Fred's car in the cartoon's opening credit. And now, today, Election Day 2010, McDonald's all across the country are once again offering the McRib, neatly symbolizing all the obvious fakery we've been gobbling up during campaign season.

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But there I was, at the store as a professional, when ... holy sweet Jesus, there's a bag of Reese's the size of my torso! Soon, the candy was just flying off the shelf into my basket, and the damage at the checkout wasn't pretty: eight pounds of the stuff, and, as I said, I was trembling for my first taste of Snickers.

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But then -- boom! -- here comes Miracle Fruit's evil Bizarro-twin brother, Gymnema Sylvestre. Yes, that's right, he's so bad he doesn't even need a name you can pronounce. And his magic power is similarly antisocial: A little sprinkle of his putrid powdery self on your tongue, and you will lose the ability to taste sweetness. Which means that Coke will taste only of its flavoring agents, oranges will taste as sour as lemons, and sugar won't taste like much at all.

If you're thinking that doesn't sound very delicious, well, you're right. But the ability to turn off one of our tastes offers a unique look into how we respond to the others, how important sweetness is to flavor, and, conversely, what we can taste in food once the masking effect of sweetness is taken away.

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But recently, I've been thinking a lot about how we taste food, what combinations are pleasing and why. There is a chefly orthodoxy that insists on tastes and flavors being in balance. But that sense of balance can shift. We can see that in America's ever-sweetening sweet tooth, as even our savory food is getting more addled with sugar. So with that in mind, experimenting with Miracle Fruit becomes a lot more interesting – will making sour-tinged foods taste sweet make them more appealing?

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I have some excuses. I was hungry and waiting for a four-hour bus ride, and sometimes, when you are hungry and waiting for a four-hour bus ride, and you grew up with parents who fed you fast food as a treat, you have to ask yourself: Are you better than your upbringing? Are you better than your history? And my answer, yesterday, was, "McNuggets." McNuggets I have loved.

Actually, my first love at the Golden Arches was the Big Breakfast, from when my parents would wake up on Sunday, their one day off a week, and take us out for squeaky Styrofoam trays of eggs, sausage patties and those weird and awesome slipper-shaped hash browns. It made me feel like an American. Later, as I grew older, I flirted with the Filet-o-Fish, but when McNuggets hit the scene, I was a goner. They hooked me by my plump cheeks and reeled me in, those stamped-out chicken-ish chunks of juicy golden deep-fry engineering. And let's not get started on the plastic cups of barbecue sauce, shall we? Because you'll have me crying the tears Proust kept to himself.

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