A Quest to Cook and Eat Every Food on “The List”
I am sure many of you are familiar with The Food List Challenge, the list of “100 things to eat before you die” made popular by facebook. I succumbed to the challenge and I have eaten 75 of the items on the list (actually, I discovered that I’ve had 77 items on the list after googling a few of them). What surprised me was that even the friends I consider most well-travelled and true culinary adventurers had not eaten all 100 items on the list. Granted this isn’t a huge sample size –I have less than 200 facebook friends so I’m not about to win a popularity contest. Still, many of my facebook friends are well-educated, well-off and well-travelled. Even then, 88 was the most foods on the list tried by my facebook acquaintances who had taken the challenge. This spurred my type-A personality into thinking-“I can beat 88-I can eat all 100!”
In fact, to the extent possible, I’d like to COOK AND EAT the foods on the list. And so, here we are. Iron Chef/Chopped secret ingredient requirements meets The Food List Challenge. And so begins eating in instead’s endeavor to prepare or cook with all of the foods on The Food List Challenge. I’d like to say I can do it in a year, but that will require 2 items from the list a week. A little ambitious unless I win the lottery. So, I’ll take it easy, one food at a time and see where that leads me. Of course, regular every day foods and meals will still be posted, so the endeavor might take a little while. I’ll probably still be working on the list long after the popularity of the list passes. Some of the ingredients will also take some searching and hard cold cash. Admittedly, FUGU may never get checked off. If I get to try Fugu, someone else will be preparing it because I’m not about to put my life and the lives of any dinner guests at stake for the sake of The List!
Recipes for the ingredients will be posted on eating in instead and I’ll track my progress on The Food List Challenge page. I’ve got Lobsters already checked off from my Red Hot Valentine’s Day dinner. Advice, recipes, and donations welcome!
