LOCAL ANGLES: IF YOU DON'T LIKE OKRA, HOW ABOUT SPINACH?

Eating is an art form in this nation. For us, it's not just a biological need -- it's fun.

I'm not talking about the every-day, hurry-up and grab-a-bite meals at Burger King, although that ranks near the top of my 2-year-old's culinary world.

No, what I'm talking about are all those food festivals that give us an excuse to stuff ourselves. You won't find Weight Watchers' booths at these celebrations.

When it comes to such festivals, no food is too lowly. Telluride, Colo., has a mushroom festival each August that includes a fungus fair. There's even a parade where people dress up as their favorite mushrooms (no kidding). I wouldn't be surprised if some of these people have eaten some bad mushrooms. That's just the kind of thing to make you want to dress up like a mushroom. I wonder what Dr. Freud would have to say about all these mushroom-heads.

If mushrooms aren't to your liking, how about garlic? In Gilroy, Calif., there's a garlic festival in late July. Even the peanut butter cups are flavored with garlic. A quarter of a million people who are not vampires attend the annual festival just so they can get bad breath. Those who have really bad breath can get first aid in the form of breath mints.

Most people celebrate the Fourth of July with fireworks. In Oatman, Ariz., however, they celebrate America's independence with an egg fry.

This town's just one big, summer sauna, with the temperature on July 4 generally a scorching 110 degrees.

That's perfect weather for sunstroke or an egg fry. The highlight of the festival is the "High-Noon Challenge," where participants bring all kinds of solar contraptions with which to cook two eggs. The usual contraptions are magnifying glasses, car hoods and fenders, but just about anything goes. There's no toast, unless it's all those people burned to a crisp by the hot sun. That, in turn, might explain why there's an egg fry to begin with.

Bertram, Texas, has its Oatmeal Festival each September. It started as a spoof of Texas' chili festivals, but enough people liked oatmeal that it grew into a full-fledged celebration.

The festival begins with an oatmeal breakfast (no Total here). But the featured attraction annually is the "fly-over," in which a plane or helicopter dumps oatmeal on the crowd of parade watchers. Fortunately, there's no milk added and the rain stays away. Otherwise, you could turn into a human oatmeal bar at this festival and find yourself in a Godzilla movie.

If seafood's your thing, why not try the Strange Seafood Exhibition in Beaufort, N.C.? It's held in August at the North Carolina Maritime Museum and features all sorts of strange stuff from raw sea urchins to squid salad.

Participants eat all this stuff while fish (who would prefer to eat people) swim in the museum's aquariums.

It's amazing how many disgusting vegetables have their own festival.

Okra is king in Checotah, Okla. The town's having its first Okrafest on Aug. 13, complete with okra cook-offs and cookbook that includes recipes on such goodies as okra muffins and pickled okra.

Organizers hope it becomes an annual event. But I have my doubts. Okra's on the yuk list for many Americans. In my mind, it ranks up their with tobacco smoke as something to be avoided in restaurants.

In Gaston, S.C., they have the Collard Festival every October. If you didn't already know it, this area is big on collards. One local grower donates 40 crates of this kind of cabbage (probably because he can't get rid of it in other way).

Not surprisingly, this stuff is served up with grease and black-eyed peas and other vegetables that you never liked as kids.

Just hint that you're thinking of taking the family to the Collard Festival, and your kids will probably jump at the chance to eat broccoli every night for a week instead.

Or they might prefer to pig out at the Spinach Festival held each September in Lenexa, Kan. The town was the "Spinach Capitol of the World" in the 1930s when Belgian-descended farmers grew the green stuff.

This is just the festival for Popeye and Olive Oyl, who show up every year to shovel a spinach salad the size of a kiddie pool. A word of warning here: It's best not to try this at home or your kid might come out looking like the Swamp Thing.

In Walla, Walla, Wash., there's the Sweet Onion Harvest Festival each July. If this doesn't make you cry, nothing will. The celebration includes the onion shotput and onion ring toss -- two events that no doubt should be added to the next Olympics.

If all these festivals are enough to give you indigestion, then stay at home: Nuke a TV dinner in the microwave and pass the Tums.