The Omnivore's Hundred, or 100 foods you should eat

I first saw this list on the beloved food blog (and one of my favorites) Chocolate and Zucchini. Andrew Wheeler, co-author of the blog Very Good Taste, came up with what he calls The Omnivore's Hundred, or a list of foods that, in his own words, "every good omnivore should have tried at least once in their life." With this list, he suggested the following rules:

1) Copy this list into your blog or journal, including these instructions.
2) Bold all the items you’ve eaten.
3) Cross out any items that you would never consider eating.
4) Optional extra: Post a comment at www.verygoodtaste.co.uk linking to your results.

Below are my results, with my commentary in parentheses. I've added an asterisk (*) to the items I've made or cooked with myself. A lot of those items are thanks to culinary school and my work as well. I suggest visiting VGT's original post or Chocolate and Zucchini's posting of the list because they took the time to link a lot of the less well-known items to Wikipedia, something I would have done as well but am too lazy to do. Heh.

1. Venison*
2. Nettle tea (Like C&Z, I've had nettle soup, but not tea)
3. Huevos rancheros*
4. Steak tartare*
5. Crocodile
6. Black pudding (AKA blood sausage)
7. Cheese fondue*
8. Carp*
9. Borscht
10. Baba ghanoush*
11. Calamari*
12. Pho (Yes please!!)
13. Peanut butter and jelly sandwich*
14. Aloo gobi*
15. Hot dog from a street cart (Boy do I miss ghetto dogs in LA...)
16. Epoisses
17. Black truffle*
18. Fruit wine made from something other than grapes (berry wine)
19. Steamed pork buns (Surprised I haven't made these yet...)
20. Pistachio ice cream
21. Heirloom tomatoes* (One of my favorite foods of all time)
22. Fresh wild berries* (Ditto #21)
23. Foie gras*
24. Rice and beans
25. Brawn or head cheese
26. Raw Scotch Bonnet pepper
27. Dulce de leche
28. Oysters* (I've gotten my shucking + cleaning time for oysters on the half-shell down to under 10 seconds per oyster from start to plate. On a good day. With cooperative oysters.)
29. Baklava*
30. Bagna cauda (Sounds intriguing)
31. Wasabi peas
32. Clam chowder in a sourdough bowl* (Is there anything better on a freezing cold day? Also, anyone have a favorite bowl in Portland?)
33. Salted lassi
34. Sauerkraut*
35. Root beer float*
36. Cognac with a fat cigar (Yes cognac, but not with a cigar)
37. Clotted cream tea (This might be at the top of my list to try)
38. Vodka jelly* (AKA Jell-O shots to us 'Mericans)
39. Gumbo*
40. Oxtail
41. Curried goat
42. Whole insects (Somehow surprised that I haven't tried this yet)
43. Phaal
44. Goat’s milk
45. Malt whisky from a bottle worth £60/$120 or more
46. Fugu (Not itching to try it, but I wouldn't rule it out entirely)
47. Chicken tikka masala
48. Eel*
49. Krispy Kreme original glazed doughnut (How can you not when you grow up next to the hometown of Krispy Kreme?)
50. Sea urchin
51. Prickly pear
52. Umeboshi
53. Abalone
54. Paneer* (Made this for the first time in school... much easier to produce than expected)
55. McDonald’s Big Mac Meal (I crossed this out because the last time I had a Big Mac, I nearly got sick just staring at the gray meat and I was henceforth determined to never eat a Big Mac ever again)
56. Spaetzle*
57. Dirty gin martini*
58. Beer above 8% ABV
59. Poutine (Fries with cheese curds? Why have I not tried these?!?)
60. Carob chips*
61. S’mores*
62. Sweetbreads*
63. Kaolin
64. Currywurst
65. Durian
66. Frogs’ legs*
67. Beignets, churros, elephant ears or funnel cake (I'll eat and enjoy pretty much any form of fried dough)
68. Haggis
69. Fried plantain*
70. Chitterlings or andouillette*
71. Gazpacho*
72. Caviar and blini
73. Louche absinthe
74. Gjetost, or brunost
75. Roadkill (Not dying to try this, but wouldn't say no)
76. Baijiu
77. Hostess Fruit Pie
78. Snail* (White wine, lemon, parsley and garlic is the way to go)
79. Lapsang souchong
80. Bellini
81. Tom yum (Would like to make this sometime)
82. Eggs Benedict* (My Hollandaise skills are getting pretty good)
83. Pocky
84. Tasting menu at a three-Michelin-star restaurant
85. Kobe beef
86. Hare*
87. Goulash
88. Flowers
89. Horse (Hell to the no. There's something very wrong with this, and I love me some meat)
90. Criollo chocolate
91. Spam*
92. Soft shell crab*
93. Rose harissa (Sounds awesome)
94. Catfish*
95. Mole poblano
96. Bagel and lox*
97. Lobster Thermidor
98. Polenta* (This is my go-to starch for black box exams)
99. Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee
100. Snake

If I counted correctly, I'm missing 23 foods on this list. And of the 38 foods I've cooked myself, nearly half of them are foods I've cooked for the first time in the past five months (since I started culinary school and working at the restaurant). I guess I shouldn't be surprised, but I think it's pretty awesome that I've had so much exposure to such interesting ingredients and recipes because of school and work.

Now I gotta get on that clotted cream tea...

Things you might or might not know about me, food edition

I'm stealing this idea from Internets uber-geek Sean Bonner, but I'm doing this foodie style. And instead of shooting for 100 things, I'll spare you all and cap the number at 28, which happens to be the number of years old I will be in a little over a month.

1. My favorite junk food (arguably of all time) is Ruffles Cheddar and Sour Cream Potato Chips.

2. I don't cook at home as much as I'd like to. I'll blame it on the fact that I have an electric range, but I know that's not entirely the case.

3. It's a point of pride for me to be a woman in a largely male-dominated field of cooks. Props to my guy friends for teasing me enough to know how to deal with a bunch of sarcastic, foulmouthed dudes.

4. I am very critical of myself in the kitchen (and elsewhere, but let's stick with food here). Any time I know I've messed up, I can always make myself feel worse about it than anyone else could.

5. Alternately, it makes me really, really happy when I do a good job. Seeing the looks on people's faces when they gobble up something I made and then passing plates around the table to share gives me such a sense of satisfaction, I remember why I'm doing this in the first place.

6. I am extremely competitive. Extremely.

7. The entirety of my college undergrad experience, I dreamed of waiting tables. I read this book and fantasized about being a server.

8. The first time I waited tables was for a restaurant owned by my aunt in Gastonia, NC. It was Sunday All-You-Can-Eat brunch, and NOT buffet style--customers ordered as much as they liked, finish the first round, ordered another round, finished that round, and on and on and on. I went back to my aunt's house after my first insane shift, called my mom and cried to her for an hour.

9. I love a bowl of hot soup on a hot day.

10. I love a bowl of hot soup basically anytime.

11. I once got into a serious argument with a previous boyfriend about the merits of soup.

12. I considered breaking up with said boyfriend over soup argument.

13. Every time I worked in a restaurant as a server or host, I made it a point to befriend the kitchen staff. I always asked a lot of questions about the food, as well as how they got started cooking, because I knew somewhere in the back of my mind I was thinking about it myself. As a result, I got food easily fired on the fly, chatted up exec chefs about their farmer's market hauls of the morning, had plates especially made up for me to try (house-made pasta in anchovy and sage-infused olive oil with shaved truffles, anyone?), and even dated a couple of cooks.

14. I feel that I've "mastered" only a handful of dishes. I'm hoping to multiply that number within the next few months.

15. I'm self-conscious about trying my hand on the hot line at work.

16. I love that cooks talk about cooking when we're not at work.

17. I went through phase as a kid when all I wanted was some form of potato. I remember it being the first time I developed an interest in cooking.

18. I was a vegetarian once for eight months, nearly eight years ago. The first omnivorous meal I ate when I quit being vegetarian was a huge plate of sashimi.

19. I consider my personal kitchen to be very ill-equipt.

20. The only time I ever got upset at my former roomie (and still one of my best friends) when we lived together was when we were making dinner one night, and I turned to see her attempting to cut off a wire twist-tie on a bunch of spinach with my new Wustof Classic 8" chef's knife. I think she knows better now :).

21. I have doubts about my cooking skills, but I know I'm getting better.

22. Another point of pride for me: Kicking ass in culinary school.

23. I've been called "bossy" by some of my classmates, but, frankly, I don't mind.

24. I'm convinced my brother knows way more about food that I do. He's a bona fide gastronome. He definitely knows more about wine than I think I ever will.

25. I am not particularly good at cooking the cuisine of my home country, and hope I will get better at it because I gots a cravin', and there's very little Taiwanese food to be found in Portland. Plus I'd like to cook some of these meals for my future family.

26. Thanks to school and work, my hands and feet look like they belong to a marathon-running auto mechanic.

27. I remember the exact moment when it struck me that I wanted to pursue a career in food: At Coastal Kitchen in Capitol Hill, Seattle with my mom, brother and sister, four years ago. I was eating a particularly good meal, happy to be with family after a tumultuous year prior, and a feeling hit me out of nowhere. Before I could think, I blurted out, "I think I know what I want to do with my life. I want a food-related career." My family's response, besides some cheering and clapping, was essentially, "DUH." Something along the lines of, "We knew all along, we were just waiting for you to realize it for yourself."

28. I'm not certain where this path will take me, but I've felt more certain on this path than any other in my life.