if you're using the entire screen, your possible sizes are 4x4 and 8x8. personally, i'd go with 6x6 and have a 4 pixel progress bar at the bottom of the screen. this makes a 16 wide by 10 tall playing field, or 160 possible squares a snake place could be. depending upon how fast the snake moves, grayscale could be ugly.. so you *may* want to keep it monochrome.
edit: and 12x12 would give you an 8 by 5 playing field, 40 possible squares, with a 4 pixel white space on the bottom