100 foods

One of the popular diversions spawned on the Internet is a list of 100 foods, apparently selected at random by some bored journalist(s).  For some reason, people find it entertaining to check-off the foods that they have tasted and send the list to their "friends".    I guess the idea is to impress your friends that you are adventurous enough to actually eat boiled snake eyeballs, or tongue of newt.

Photo courtesy
www.edibleblog.com

Now, at the risk of being thought of as a total grump, this seems to me a bit silly. Juvenile, even.   It was  interesting when evil Watergate plotter G. Gordon Liddy admitted in an interview that as a youth, he once killed, roasted and ate a rat, because he thought it would make him fearless.  And, as mentioned in his  autobiography, a young Barack Obama, then living in Indonesia was introduced to eating dog, snake and insects (which he recalled as crunchy)  This is interesting stuff.

  But, mere lists of foods checked-off do not give the reader any information about your character or motives.  Who gives a rat's patooty that you have eaten Twinkies?

The rest of us are only interested in the story behind the meal?  We want the tasty details of setting, the personalities of your server, chef, host.  There should be an element of danger or passion or mystery associated with the dining experience for it to be worthy of sharing the disclosure with friends - even FBF's.

Cricket Salad

So do not present me with boasting lists that you have tried 60 of the hundred items.  Tell me about the most fabulous meal or the worst thing you have tasted and why you did it.

On a List of "America's Most Adventurous Eaters"  my name would be way, way down near the bottom - and in small print.  I have no exotic stories to report, except maybe  the time on that camping trip with Dick Cheney where the guide was shot and killed --  accidentally of course --  and the rest of us cooked and ate him.  You can't make stuff like that up.