The Omnivore's 100

[vilakins]

From Very Good Taste via redscharlach: a list of 100 foods every omnivore should try. I'm not one by any means, but it's an interesting list. I scored 47 which isn't too bad for someone with various food bans, some of which I've flouted (eg. a slice of crocodile pizza once). I wouldn't mind betting altariel and mraltariel score close to 100.

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.

1. Venison
2. Nettle tea
3. Huevos rancheros
4. Steak tartare
5. Crocodile
6. Black pudding
7. Cheese fondue
8. Carp
9. Borscht
10. Baba ghanoush
11. Calamari
12. Pho
13. PB&J sandwich
14. Aloo gobi
15. Hot dog from a street cart
16. Epoisses
17. Black truffle
18. Fruit wine made from something other than grapes
19. Steamed pork buns
20. Pistachio ice cream
21. Heirloom tomatoes
22. Fresh wild berries
23. Foie gras
24. Rice and beans
25. Brawn, or head cheese
26. Raw Scotch Bonnet pepper
27. Dulce de leche
28. Oysters
29. Baklava
30. Bagna cauda
31. Wasabi peas
32. Clam chowder in a sourdough bowl (well, fish chowder anyway)
33. Salted lassi
34. Sauerkraut
35. Root beer float
36. Cognac with a fat cigar
37. Clotted cream tea
38. Vodka jelly/Jell-O
39. Gumbo
40. Oxtail
41. Curried goat
42. Whole insects
43. Phaal
44. Goat’s milk
45. Malt whisky from a bottle worth £60/$120 or more
46. Fugu
47. Chicken tikka masala
48. Eel
49. Krispy Kreme original glazed doughnut
50. Sea urchin
51. Prickly pear
52. Umeboshi
53. Abalone
54. Paneer
55. McDonald’s Big Mac Meal
56. Spaetzle
57. Dirty gin martini
58. Beer above 8% ABV
59. Poutine
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
68. Haggis
69. Fried plantain
70. Chitterlings, or andouillette
71. Gazpacho
72. Caviar and blini
73. Louche absinthe
74. Gjetost, or brunost
75. Roadkill
76. Baijiu
77. Hostess Fruit Pie
78. Snail
79. Lapsang souchong
80. Bellini
81. Tom yum
82. Eggs Benedict
83. Pocky
84. Tasting menu at a three-Michelin-star restaurant.
85. Kobe beef
86. Hare
87. Goulash
88. Flowers
89. Horse
90. Criollo chocolate
91. Spam
92. Soft shell crab
93. Rose harissa
94. Catfish
95. Mole poblano
96. Bagel and lox
97. Lobster Thermidor
98. Polenta
99. Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee
100. Snake

I miss gjetost. You can't get it here any more, but OTOH the local supermarket sells spaetzle which I had two nights ago.

Those of you in Canada: one thing I'd like to try is poutine. It's got to be good if it's that popular, and I need comfort food right now. I can't get cheese curds, so what's a good cheese to use on it? Bocconcini? Also, do French Canadians ever call it Vladimir Poutine like my family calls nasi goreng Nazi Goering? (I should have included that one in my family slang post.)

Comments

[entropy-house.livejournal.com]

'Hostess' is a brand name for a US baked goods company, so I assume that's what they mean. I don't frankly think any of the Hostess brand products are any great shucks.

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

Oh, OK. I'll have to change that one back to "no" then.

[acanthaster.livejournal.com]

This is great! I've posted my answers on my LJ. I love that about half of your "never consider eating" items are favorite foods of mine. :-)

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

Pork and seafood and weird animal bits--just no. :-P

[jhall1.livejournal.com]

There are quite a few there that I don't even recognise, so thanks for providing the Wiki links.

I can recommend salted lassi.

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

I love lassi--mango and plain, my dessert of choice at an Indian restaurant--but salted? That would surely defeat the purpose.

[jhall1.livejournal.com]

In my experience the amount of salt is very small and barely detectable. I think the options on offer in Indian restaurants in the UK are usually "salted" and "fruit", so I suspect that what I and the meme setter call "salted" may well be the same as what you call "plain".

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

In that case, I do eat and love plain lassi! And now I want one.

I've edited my list.

[redscharlach.livejournal.com]

Actually, salted lassi has got salt in it and does definitely taste of it. Most Indian restaurants here that offer lassi provide the options of sweet (I think this is what you're thinking off as plain) and salted (and sometimes fruit versions as well, it's true). Salted isn't my favourite but it's better than I thought it would be before I tried it, if that makes any sense.

[acanthaster.livejournal.com]

Yes, as redscharlach says, some Indian restaurants I've been to offer a choice of mango lassi, plain (or sweet) lassi, and salt lassi, which is definitely salty. I love it, but my husband, who loves mango lassi and sweet lassi, will take one sip of mine and make the most horrible face ever.

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

Well, if I ever come across it, I'll try it. :-)

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

I've never seen it offered here, even at the thali place where you get your meal on tin trays and I'm the only non-Indian. Ah well, it comes off the list again.

[imhilien.livejournal.com]

I have to admit there are food names there I don't even recognise (looks sheepish).

I wouldn't touch sweetbreads with a long stick, though. Meh.

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

I didn't know some of them either. I included all the links from the original Very Good Taste page so people could look the more unusual ones up.

There's quite a lot I wouldn't touch. I don't eat pork and shellfish and some other things, but I also have an easily-triggered gag reflex. :-P

[san-valentine.livejournal.com]

I don't drink beer, but I've had cider over 8% ABV. Cider is often stronger than beer, so most of my favourites start at 6% and go up from there.

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

I've had ice beer in Germany in midwinter when I lived there. You leave it outside and drink what doesn't freeze. (!!!) I've drunk a lot of other beers though (at least one from each country I've been to for a start) so I'm sure I've had some other stronger ones.

[mraltariel.livejournal.com]

There are a couple of delicious things that you've put a cross through, that I'd recommend a go at one day, if you feel like it:

sweetbreads (unbelievably delicious if delicately cooked - first had them at Midsummer House)

snails (unless you are seafood-a-aphobic)

hare (makes a lovely casserole, just like rabbit but more richly flavoured)

eel (very, very tasty and not at all what you'd expect)

I originally put a big line through abalone, too, on moral grounds. Until I discovered that they are now farming it extensively, and it is therefore likely to survive if we eat it.

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

In general I don't eat pork and seafood (though as I said, I've flouted that on occasion, notably with shrimp, calamari, and crocodile--once), and the whole idea of eating strange body parts squicks me. I have a sensitive gag reflex so there's no point in trying. I once prepared cow stomachs for a Hungarian dish on a kibbutz, but I refused to eat the things.

I know people who eat eel and sea urchin (kina); Maori delicacies. Do you get abalone in the UK? I thought it was an American food.

[richenda.livejournal.com]

I love gjetost - I've never seen it in the UK - what is bruntost?
I don't know abalone or poutine either

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

Brunost is Norwegian for "brown cheese" and is actually gjetost (which I think means "goat cheese"). It's just marketed overseas as gjetost which appears to be an obsolete name in Norway. When I lived in London, I worked in Jermyn Street (in Piccadilly) and used to haunt the famous cheese chop there. They had gjetost and almost certainly still have. I used to buy wonderful cheeses there (to the disgust of my colleagues at the office; some were pungent). I know they send them around the country too.

Abalone is a shellfish, and I don't eat shellfish. They're very like paua here, going by their shells.

Poutine is a French-Canadian comfort food: chips with cheese curds melted over, then gravy on top. People over there love it so I'd like to try it. I could do it with normal cheese but apparently the squeaky curds are part of the appeal.

I included the Very Good Taste links for the weirder ones if you want to click on them. :-)

[richenda.livejournal.com]

Yes,goats' cheese was certainly brown when I used to eat it in Norway - and, on reflection, I don't remember what the local people called it - perhaps it was the iggerant visitors who called it gjetost. (That was in the 1960s.)
Welsh goars' cheese is so different as to be unrecognizable as coming form a similar animal!
I'm relieved about the abalone - because I associate the word with jewellery - I now realize that it must be made of shells?
I'd think that the appeal of poutine would depend on the quality of the gravy as well as the curds?

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

It seems that paua and abalone are the same, so I've eaten it under another name, in paua fritters. I own paua jewellery that's made from the shells; have a look here (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paua).

I imagine poutine varies a lot in the quality of its ingredients and cooking. Ah well, I suppose I'll give it a go with ordinary cheese unless I can find curds somewhere.

[lizamanynames.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I've heard it called Vladimir poutine.

For true, reallly authentic poutine you need white cheese curds - young white chedder but motza will do in a pinch, and ementaler would be interesting if you want to experiment - and pork gravy over homecut chips.

It is to die for.

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

French Canadians must crack up when they read about V Poutine' I assume that's how they spell his name.

No! Nonononono! Not pork gravy. EEEWWWWW!

Mozzarella or emmentaler then! And maybe chicken or beef gravy. I do like raclette melted over boiled jacket potatoes.

[lizamanynames.livejournal.com]

Pigs were the food of choice of the french canadian settlers, what can I say. Go with beef gravy, then - the texture is all wrong with chicken gravy, and it needs to be hot enough to melt the cheese - beef gravy does high temps better, I've found.

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

Oh, the gravy melts the cheese? I thought it went under the grill or something.

[lizamanynames.livejournal.com]

Nope, in proper poutine the heat from the fresh made chips and the fresh made gravy melts the cheese between them.