In Seoul, a celebrated two-Michelin-starred restaurant found itself at the intersection of culinary ambition and regulatory boundary, fined for garnishing desserts with ants — creatures revered as delicacies across many cultures but absent from South Korea's approved list of edible insects. Over nearly four years, some 49,000 ants quietly made their way onto tasting menus, discovered not by inspectors but by the digital traces of diners sharing their wonder online. The case asks an enduring question: who decides what is food, and by what authority does one culture's delicacy become another's v