Hello Sluggo:

This idea was put forth back in August by Andrew Wheeler, author of Eat Britain. I might be a little late on the draw, but I think I’m up to the challenge. Let’s see…

The instructions:

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.
4) Optional extra: Post a comment at www.verygoodtaste.co.uk linking to your results.

The VGT Omnivore’s Hundred:

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
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

(PS: The list has generated a lot of questions, so Andrew created an FAQ for it over here!)

Okay, so my score is 69/100. Not bad, but I would have done even better had he included a few other oddball things in the mix, like Whale, Natto, Shirako (fish milt, or seminal fluid sacs—yeah, fish jizz, raw even), pig’s ear, tequila con gusano, steamed pork blood, chicken feet, fish’s eyes, thousand-year-old egg and maybe a half dozen other things I’ve consumed before.

And after all that, the only thing I crossed off the list was “a fat cigar.” Sorry, tobacco products just gross me out.

The remaining 31 items on the list better be pretty damned good, or I’m gonna feel kinda ripped off by the time it’s all said and done.

I received a text from my wife yesterday that signaled the passing of a great man.

“Have you read the news that Dolemite died?”

I hadn’t. Jumping over to Dolemite.com, I read the mounting news reports of his death and remembered the couple of times I met him. Onstage, he was Dolemite, Shine, Petey Wheatstraw the Devil’s Son-in-Law and more, all rolled up in one big nasty package, but offstage, he was kind, thoughful, even going-out-of-his-way courteous to a crowd of people he didn’t know as they lined up for autographs and souvenir photos.

The first time I saw him perform in 1993 at the See You Later Lounge over on Montopolis Drive, he seemed to just be starting his “revival” after languishing in obscurity during most of the previous decade. A small crowd of Emo’s regulars (all white, of course) had come to the show, and RRM took enormous pleasure including a bit of friendly harrassment in his act that night, at one point asking if anyone would “eat a chitlin cleaned by this white bitch over here” (my future sister-in-law, Mary Ann) and even getting me up before the crowd to exclaim, “This big motherfucker look just like Pee Wee Herman, just fatter.You jack off alot don’t you, man?” And what could I say but, “Yes, Mr. Dolemite, yes I do!” For my good sportsmanship, I was rewarded with a copy of a porn movie entitled “Willy Jackoff’s Chocolate and Cream Factory: Black Thunder.” The crowd loved it. As I left the stage with my prize, he sent me off with “Here, take this… It’s horrible.”

In order to pay his way back to LA, he was selling posters and other Dolemite merch, plus some dubious non-RRM junk such as framed prints of huge stacks of cash and cheap VHS porn tapes and other junk, most of which he had nothing to do with. Upon asking him to sign the movie I had proudly won, he replied, “Man, I ain’t in that movie, I can’t sign my name to it.” He did, however, finally signing the box, “To John, You Pee Wee Herman Motherfucker.”

The second time I saw him was in 1997 at Catfish Station on Sixth Street. By then he was enjoying a rebounding career that brought high praise from the movers and shakers of the comedy and hip hop worlds. His act, as well as his gracious personality, was basically the same though, but this time I noticed his advanced age was surely catching up with him. I picked up a “Dolemite for President” t-shirt and some other memorabilia, and as he was signing the merch and chatting with me, he seemed to be looking right through me—he was probably already suffering vision problems from the diabetes that had plagued him for so long. He remembered the Pee Wee Herman comparison from years earlier, and thanked me “for being such a good sport up there.”

The lasting impression left on me by RRM, besides the fact that he was a funny motherfucker, was that he was the antithesis of the “take the money and run” stereotype of his contemporaries. If anyone deserved attention and respect for all that he pioneered in the entertainment world, it was him.