December 27, 2014

123 Food Experiences To Try Before You Die

Eat a dish in the restaurant that invented it
Pick food from pots by pointing and hoping
Catch a fish and barbecue it
Make your own pasta
Wander the streets to find the perfect bakery
Choose the stinkiest cheese
Order pho in Vietnam
And Beijing Duck in Beijing
And ragú in Bologna
And kebabs in Istanbul
And hummus in Beirut
And kaiseki in Kyoto
And curry in Colombo
And pizza in Naples
And burgers in New York
And moules-frites in Bruges
And macaroons in Paris
And bratwurst in Berlin
And ceviche in Lima
And herring in Copenhagen
And tom yam in Thailand
And dim sum in Hong Kong

Tour a champagne house
Pick tomatoes from the vine
Get your money’s worth at a seafood buffet
Have Sunday lunch of rare roast beef with Yorkshire pudding
Make a spice paste with a pestle
Delve into a vat of Sichuan hotpot
Sleep under the stars and cook over an open fire
Eat steamboat style
Buy fish from a fisherman
Slurp down raw oysters
Shop in a spice market
Taste caviar with blinis and sour cream
Take a tasting flight at a microbrewery
Talk food with a great chef
Sample Michelin 3* cuisine – even if it’s for lunch
Scarf noodle soup for breakfast
Ask the locals how to cook rice
Try chilli chocolate, Aztec style

Eat in a revolving restaurant
Taste handmade gelato – in Italy
Take a cooking course
Stay up late enough to visit the wholesale market
Pick your own strawberries
Kill an animal, then eat it
Stop at a restaurant just because it’s busy
Go to a supermarket you know from home – abroad
Eat battered fish and lardy chips from newspaper
Embrace street food
Eat bizarre animals – crocodile, camel, reindeer, jellyfish
Taste tapas in Barcelona
Go to a bar on your own, and sit at the bar
Break the Ramadan fast with a family
Watch cheese being made
Shop at a farmer’s market
Try a deconstructed classic from your culture
Enjoy a dish so beautiful it looks like art
Pick fresh herbs from the garden

Taste jamón against jamón Iberico de bellota
Go junk food crazy in a foreign mall
Make a cake and ‘clean out the bowl’
Invent your own recipe for a dish you’ve tried
Eat with your fingers, local style
Drink mulled wine in a ski lodge
Roast a sucking pig
Eat octopus while it’s still wriggling
Knead dough
Pod peas
Toss a pancake
Sample cold-brew coffee
Explore a tea plantation
Milk a cow
Retire to bed with a box of great chocolate
Take a child to a good restaurant
Cook eggs in a volcano
Discover foie gras
Feel the fear and eat it anyway

Say ‘yes’ when someone asks if you want it spicy
Buy something at a market and figure out what it is when you get home
Go for high tea
Make toast over an open flame
Share a Thanksgiving dinner
Forage – and cook it
Make your own jam
Chop parsley chef-fine – just the once
Gather windfalls
Eat nuts while they’re green
Share the temple offerings when the gods have finished
Make a salad so organic it has bugs in it
Enjoy hospitality – even if what you’re eating makes you gag
Smile when folk laugh at the idiot foreigner (you)
Shell steamed peanuts, still on the stem
Fast, and break your fast
Scarf a fry-up in a greasy spoon
Queue with clubbers for wee hours junk food
Go crabbing
Stay in a smart hotel and dress for dinner
Help with the harvest
Eat innards – liver, kidney, heart, brains …
Eat genitalia – sea urchins, rocky mountain oysters
Eat something that’s forbidden in your culture – dog, pork, insects, beef, horse …
Try something just for the texture
Drink sundowners by a thermonuclear sunset
Discover the joys of fish cheeks
Watch a street vendor cook, then copy them
Ask a local in the market how to cook something
Ask a chef how they make something
Eat candy for dinner because you feel like it

Be unembarrassable
Try a dish in a myriad places to find the best – and keep on trying
Pick perfect peaches
Wash down baklava with sweet coffee
Eat sour mango dipped in salt and spices
Buy from the vendors who besiege the local bus
Invent a juice
Master a few varieties of a single fruit
Work up an appetite
Help plant rice
Learn the essence of a classic dish
Make mashed potatoes à la Joël Robuchon
Design your own food tour
Eat something that looks disgusting just to see if it is
Try something that’s supposed to be good for you even if it isn’t
Come to your home food as a tourist