100 Foods to Try Before You Die?

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(I'm no longer posting on this blog - enjoy the recipe but if you want to see what I'm up to, visit me here.)

I've stumbled across this list probably 20 times on various food blogs in the last few months. I have no clue where it originated or who the author is but I think it weighs a little too heavily on typical (for an American) gross out foods- fugu, insects, durian, head cheese? Road kill?? Really? No thanks. I really don't think I need to taste those before I die. The other half of the list are boring foods like p&j and jello shots. Tasting jello shots never did anything for me, except make it acceptable to do or say things I wouldn't say while sober. Not sure if I absolutely needed to try them. And sure, I love pb & j sandwiches as much as anyone else but I don't think your life is incomplete if you haven't tried one. Chocolate? Red wine? Baked Brie? Apple Crisp in the fall? Bacon? Yes, missing these foods WILL make your life incomplete. Never tasting a Big Mac Value meal is not going to take anything away from you, except maybe a little indigestion.

Anyhow, instead of listening to me whine about how I don't think it's the essential list (when I'm posting it on the blog anyway until I can come up with my own!), how many of these have you had? And what ones would you not eat? You couldn't pay me to eat black pudding. There's just something about cooking blood until it solidifies that turns my stomach.

1. Venison
2. Nettle tea
3. Huevos rancheros - yes
4. Steak tartare -yes
5. Crocodile
6. Black pudding
7. Cheese fondue
8. Carp
9. Borscht
10. Baba ghanoush - yes
11. Calamari - yes
12. Pho
13. PB&J sandwich - yes
14. Aloo gobi - yes
15. Hot dog from a street cart
16. Epoisses
17. Black truffle
18. Fruit wine made from something other than grapes - yes
19. Steamed pork buns
20. Pistachio ice cream - yes
21. Heirloom tomatoes - yes
22. Fresh wild berries - yes
23. Foie gras
24. Rice and beans - yes
25. Brawn, or head cheese
26. Raw Scotch Bonnet pepper
27. Dulce de leche
28. Oysters - yes
29. Baklava - yes
30. Bagna cauda
31. Wasabi peas - yes
32. Clam chowder in a sourdough bowl - yes
33. Salted lassi - I've had a sweet lassi, not a salted one!
34. Sauerkraut - yes
35. Root beer float - yes
36. Cognac with a fat cigar - not at the same time
37. Clotted cream tea
38. Vodka jelly/Jell-O shot - yes
39. Gumbo
40. Oxtail
41. Curried goat
42. Whole insects
43. Phaal
44. Goat's milk
45. Single malt whisky - yes
46. Fugu
47. Chicken tikka masala - yes
48. Eel - yes
49. Krispy Kreme original glazed doughnut -yes, thanks to MB!
50. Sea urchin
51. Prickly pear
52. Umeboshi
53. Abalone
54. Paneer - yes
55. McDonald's Big Mac Meal - yes
56. Spaetzle - yes
57. Dirty gin martini - yes
58. Beer above 8% ABV - yes
59. Poutine
60. Carob chips
61. S'mores - yes
62. Sweetbreads
63. Kaolin
64. Currywurst
65. Durian
66. Frogs' legs
67. Beignets, churros, elephant ears or funnel cake - yes
68. Haggis
69. Fried plantain - yes
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 - yes
78. Snail - yes
79. Lapsang souchong
80. Bellini - yes
81. Tom yum
82. Eggs Benedict - yes
83. Pocky - yes
84. Tasting menu at a three-Michelin-star restaurant
85. Kobe beef
86. Hare
87. Goulash - yes
88. Flowers - yes
89. Horse
90. Criollo
91. Spam
92. Soft shell crab
93. Rose harissa
94. Catfish - yes
95. Mole poblano - yes
96. Bagel and lox - yes
97. Lobster Thermidor
98. Polenta - yes
99. Jamaican Blue Mountain Coffee
100. Snake


All text and photographs © 2008, 2009 Food is to love / Andrea Quigley (except when noted otherwise)