Nutrition and Physical Regeneration

clam chowder in a sourdough bowl - photo courtesy of foodtravelblog.com/blog/

One of my favorite food blogs is Kate Hopkin's Accidental Hedonist. While I doubt I will see her at a Weston A. Price Foundation conference in the near future, Kate eats, drinks, and writes well. She is also from my hometown of Seattle, so what's not to like about her?

Just recently while perusing her archives I came across a post she did in September 2008 called The Omnivore's 100. A UK blog, Very Good Taste, came up with a list of 100 foods they thought every omnivore should try at least once during their lifetime. They then challenged folks in the blogosphere to copy the list and highlight the foods which they have eaten at some point in their life. Well Kate took up the challenge (as did many other bloggers) and so will I.

Now as per the rules laid down by Very Good Taste, here are the blogger instructions:

Copy this list into your blog or journal, including these instructions.
Bold all the items you’ve eaten.
Cross out any items that you would never consider eating.
Optional extra: Post a comment here at Very Good Taste linking to your results.

I found there were a number of foods that I had never heard of, so I italicized those items. The lined out items are foods I will never eat or won't try again. Now on with the show!

The VGT Omnivore’s Hundred:

1. Venison
2. Nettle tea – I use it on my hair as well
3. Huevos rancheros – does without eggs count?
4. Steak tartare – see my post on making it yourself
5. Crocodile – yes a sampling at the Exotic Foods store listed in the sidebar
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 – no but something close
27. Dulce de leche – my refined sugar days are long gone
28. Oysters
29. Baklava
30. Bagna cauda
31. Wasabi peas
32. Clam chowder in a sourdough bowl – Looks very interesting
33. Salted lassi – sounds delicious!
34. Sauerkraut
35. Root beer float – reminder that any junk food can become a good food if made at home
36. Cognac with a fat cigar – the cigar is my favorite part
37. Clotted cream tea
38. Vodka jelly/Jell-O – seriously?
39. Gumbo
40. Oxtail
41. Curried goat
42. Whole insects – chocolate covered insects as a child
43. Phaal
44. Goat’s milk
45. Malt whisky from a bottle worth $120 or more – uh…I don't think I was buying that night
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 – back in the day, quarter pounders were my thing
56. Spaetzle
57. Dirty gin martini
58. Beer above 8% ABV
59. Poutine
60. Carob chips
61. S’mores
62. Sweetbreads – next to foie gras, my favorite organ meat
63. Kaolin – ??? see below – does bentonite count?
64. Currywurst
65. Durian
66. Frogs’ legs
67. Beignets, churros, elephant ears or funnel cake
68. Haggis
69. Fried plantain
70. Chitterlings, or andouillette – when I was a kid you could get chitterlings for free!
71. Gazpacho
72. Caviar and blini
73. Louche absinthe
74. Gjetost, or brunost
75. Roadkill – under starvation conditions only
76. Baijiu
77. Hostess Fruit Pie – I ate enough of these as a kid to preserve my body for two lifetimes!
78. Snail
79. Lapsang souchong
80. Bellini
81. Tom yum
82. Eggs Benedict
83. Pocky
84. Tasting menu at a three-Michelin-star restaurant. – I believe it was in Las Vegas
85. Kobe beef – the real thing which I don't think is available any longer in the US
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 – no but I have had its close cousin Lobster Newberg
98. Polenta
99. Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee
100. Snake

Now for those wondering about kaolin and cigars, Andrew from Very Good Taste answered a series of questions related to the above list, and here is what he had to say:

Q. Alcohol is one thing, but you can’t eat cigars! Why should I have a cigar with my Cognac?

A. Cigars have a flavour, and many connoisseurs consider it complementary to alcohol in general and to Cognac in particular. Hickory chips aren’t food either, but we still use them to smoke meat, so think of this as smoked Cognac!

Q. OK, so… kaolin?

A. Yes, it is clay. No, it’s not exactly ‘food’. Typically the only people who eat it are folks with eating disorders, poor people with mineral deficiencies, and pregnant women with strange cravings. A lot of people who said they’d had it had done so because it’s used in medicine or as a food additive, and those are legitimate answers. The reason I put it in the list, though, was to probe the limits of your omnivorousness. Kaolin is edible and nutritious, with a unique flavour and texture. It’s a mineral, yes, but then so is salt. It’s not food – but by most definitions it’s not far off it. You may be quite certain that you don’t want to eat it, but you don’t know that you don’t like it unless you’ve tried it, and that’s really the defining principle of a list like this. Plus, as my dear old grandmother used to say, you’ll eat a peck of dirt before you die.

So I'm at 54 out of 100. What about you?

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Michael

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