The Omnivore's One Hundred

St Apollinaire

I found this on Veronica’s lovely foodie blog (I'm looking forward to meeting you tomorrow, Veronica).

It’s quite popular on the foodie blogs so here’s a go. There are some very ordinary things here and some rather odd and probably dangerous ones too – I never considered myself an adventurous eater and I really think a poisonous fish is a step (chew?) too far, but I’ve tried more than I would have thought. It’s actually given me some ideas to have a go at some other things too. I have to confess that I had to look a few things up on google!

Here’s how it works:

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.

1. Venison
2. Nettle tea
3. Huevos rancheros
4. Steak tartare (admittedly I opted for the partly cooked version and it was only a taste of someone else's!)
5. Crocodile
6. Black pudding
7. Cheese fondue
8. Carp
9. Borscht
10. Baba ghanoush
11. Calamari
12. Pho (Vietnamese beef soup – I love Vietnamese food but haven’t ever tried this one)
13. PB&J sandwich -(Peanut butter, yes; jam/jelly, yes, but together??? perleeese!)
14. Aloo gobi (Indian potato curry)
15. Hot dog from a street cart
16. Epoisses (many an odd cheese but not this one - yet)
17. Black truffle
18. Fruit wine made from something other than grapes (Home made elderberry )
19. Steamed pork buns
20. Pistachio ice cream
21. Heirloom tomatoes (At least I think I've just grown some!!)
22. Fresh wild berries
23. Foie gras
24. Rice and beans
25. Brawn, or head cheese (bleugh!)
26. Raw Scotch Bonnet pepper (I’m not that stupid)
27. Dulce de leche
28. Oysters (lightly grilled with garlic and shallot butter - yum)
29. Baklava
30. Bagna cauda (Should do, it sounds lovely)
31. Wasabi peas (We’ve made wasabi chicken but never tried peas)
32. Clam chowder in a sourdough bowl (Clam Chowder but not the sourdough bowl)
33. Salted lassi
34. Sauerkraut
35. Root beer float
36. Cognac with a fat cigar (both, but not together)
37. Clotted cream tea
38. Vodka jelly/Jell-O (I really must try it though!)
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 (Please note I did not buy said bottle)
46. Fugu (can’t understand why you would want to)
47. Chicken tikka masala
48. Eel (too much like snakes for my liking!)
49. Krispy Kreme original glazed doughnut (yuk)
50. Sea Urchin (no way!)
51. Prickly pear
52. Umeboshi
53. Abalone
54. Paneer (Indian cheese)
55. McDonald’s Big Mac Meal (how embarrassing to admit)
56. Spaetzle
57. Dirty gin martini (sounds quite disgusting, gimme a g&t any day)
58. Beer above 8% ABV
59. Poutine (Also sounds quite disgusting)
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 (accidentally on French OU summer school in Caen - quite revolting!)
71. Gazpacho
72. Caviar and blini
73. Louche absinthe
74. Gjetost, or brunost
75. Roadkill (poor deer)
76. Baijiu
77. Hostess Fruit Pie (half a point methinks as Lyons must be the same sort of thing)
78. Snail (I was persuaded to try one by a friend, shared half a one with someone else, we both agreed that they are quite revolting – Jon quite likes them though)
79. Lapsang souchong
80. Bellini
81. Tom yum
82. Eggs Benedict
83. Pocky (I hadn’t even heard of it until now)
84. Tasting menu at a three-Michelin-star restaurant (Oh, in my dreams!)
85. Kobe beef
86. Hare (Nooooo! We have them in the field here, rarely but they are so lovely)
87. Goulash
88. Flowers
89. Horse
90. Criollo chocolate (At least I think so)
91. Spam (Lord, school dinner spam fritters!)
92. Soft shell crab (much to my surprise I really liked it - probably because it was served up at a wonderful restaurant in Surrey - Kinghams in Shere)
93. Rose harissa (Yes to harissa, we use it all the time, but not with rose petals)
94. Catfish
95. Mole poblano
96. Bagel and lox - not together though
97. Lobster Thermidor (Lobster yes but Thermidor-ed nope)
98. Polenta (Didn't like it much - must try a different recipe)
99. Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee
100. Snake

Well, that’s just 67 out of 100. With 9 I wouldn’t consider, that leaves me plenty to seek out and try. I really look forward to number 84.

Note to self – find rich man to take me out to dinner!

Something(s) in the air

St Adelphe

I have tried, honestly, to get some nice photos for you of our latest wonder. Having been dive bombed every day for weeks in and around the pool by ghastly green-faced horseflies with a bite like nothing you've known, we are now enchanted by our latest 'playmates' by the pool. They are dragonflies - we have Golden Ringed dragonflies and Emperor dragonflies fluttering around. Sometimes they stop right in front of you and it is as if they are peering into your face to see what you are.

They are just beautiful and quite amazing creatures. We'll be looking them up to see if we can find out more, and also trying to photograph them for these pages.

Later this afternoon whilst sitting and sewing outside in the garden I heard a lot of chattering going on, a sort of 'tseep' and 'tchirrip'. Looking up we could see literally hundreds of house martins swooping and fluttering around as the clouds rolled in and the sky got heavier. Obviously there were plenty of low flying bugs and flies for them to feed on and they were enjoying a huge bugfest orgy! The area they were covering was very wide as they filled the sky.

We know that they are nesting in the church and around the village and now and then the flock has come as far south as our house but we had never seen quite as many as this and we wondered if they were beginning to head south for winter, gathering into larger flocks on the way.

It will be a sad day when we don't see them any more in the village as a sign that summer has left us. Today we have had 26 degrees and beautiful clear skies once again until late afternoon when the cloud has begun to gather. The next few days are forecast as unsettled but we have great hopes that summer isn't over yet.

Summer continues

St Adrien

I'm really sorry to tell you chaps in Brownland that summer continues beautifully here, fantastic clear skies and warm temperatures.

We went to Rocamadour this morning partly on a search for clothes for the wedding and partly to treat ourselves to lunch out to celebrate our wedding anniversary yesterday. Having noticed a distinct quietening of the roads and shops since 1st September we were very surprised to find the village absolutely packed with tourists. Where were they all staying? Certainly nowhere near us, all the campsites are empty and the hotels are quiet too.

We found a table at a restaurant on a terrace overlooking the valley and browsed the menu. No sooner had we made our choices than the restaurant suddenly filled up. French, British and Dutch diners all clamouring for their cassoulet or confit de canard.

It was a lovely lunch, very relaxed and, considering the number of people visiting the village, quiet.

The best news is that I now have an outfit for the wedding.

I think.

Maybe I still need some shoes.

But I do have a hat!

Silent Sunday

Ste Reine


No, not Sunday lunch, these are our neighbours!

Sheep shall graze, Frayssinet, July 2008

Copyright Sue Smith, July 2008

Chilled courgette soup with mint

St Bertrand

I didn't pick any courgettes yesterday having checked them the day before and seeing none that were in danger of taking over the garden, so I was a little surprised to find a couple of marrows on the courgette plants today - it's amazing what a little rain can do - and it wasn't heavy rain overnight!

So, this next recipe is for courgette and mint soup - to be eaten chilled. Allow at least 4 hours for the soup to cool in the fridge before eating.

Heat 2 tablespoons of olive oil in a deep, heavy bottomed saucepan and gently cook 1 chopped onion for a couple of minutes until softened.

Add 1kg of courgettes, chopped. Cook, stirring for a couple of minutes further then cover and leave over a low heat for about 10 minutes until the courgettes are soft but do not allow them to colour.

Add 1.5 litres of vegetable stock and a handful of chopped fresh mint leaves and bring to the boil. Turn down the heat and leave to simmer for a further 20 minutes until the courgettes are soft.

Remove from the heat and allow to cool for a couple of minutes before blending the soup. Adjust the seasoning and add stir in a small pot of creme fraiche.

Put the soup into a large bowl or tureen and allow to cool to room temperature before transferring to the fridge to chill for at least 4 hours before serving.

Taste before serving and adjust the seasoning if required. Serve in individual bowls with a swirl of creme fraiche and a sprig of mint.

Time flying by

Ste Ingrid

We had a call from a friend yesterday inviting us to supper on Friday. 'We'd love to of course' I said and went to write it on the calendar. We thought that after a heavy few weeks we had at least two weeks free to concentrate on home before we disappear to the Midlands for a weekend (more on that later).

Last week, after our last staying guests for the time being went home we had time to clear out the chalet and restock the fridge, then it was bookclub and friends to supper night, followed by quiz night. We had this week free, then a couple of things on next week culminating in the Messiah performance on Saturday evening. A few days later we head to Paris and then on to Birmingham and Shropshire. So we were looking forward to a few quiet days.

Then on Saturday morning as I was heading for the bakers my mobile rang:

'We're in town and thought we'd drop in and see you as we head home. You did say that you might have some bread and cheese to share for lunch'....

Of course I did, as Jon says, I'm very free with my invitations for people to 'drop in' even if, as in this case, it isn't actually on their way home - they live in the opposite direction!

Thinking on my feet, I bought extra cheese, and a few sliced meats too to pad out lunch.

It was lovely to see our friends as they had been back in the UK for 6 weeks and hadn't been well before they left. We spent a couple of hours catching up and, that was most of Saturday taken care of.

On Sunday we were expecting people to lunch. We spent the morning getting lunch reading and tidying the garden which had been neglected for a week.

One o'clock came and no visitors. Two o'clock, two thirty..... At three I started making a cake, convinced that they would like something to eat later with a cup of tea. And we ate our lunch without them (it was very nice).

At four fifteen they called and it was apparent that they were heading for another village with the same name (almost) as ours. Finally at 5 o'clock they arrived. We had a nice cup of tea and lemon drizzle cake in the garden, showed them around the house and they went off to their hotel not very far from here.

At eight we went to a restaurant where we had planned to meet them. At eight thirty they turned up.

It was a lovely restaurant just north of Cahors at St Martin. We had a very nice meal, delicious, beautifully presented, excellent service and not too expensive. Just a really relaxed evening with some lovely people. They had offered to take us out to dinner at a restaurant of our choice and it all worked out beautifully. We said a sad goodbye to them at the restaurant and hope to see them again soon, probably back in the UK.

And we didn't once mention lunch.

Quizzical

St Gilles

'..and the next category is Pop Music'

A groan echoes through the bar, but it's really all pretence.

We are in the new village bar attending the monthly quiz - 'Le P'tit Quiz' to be precise. It's only the second time we have attended having been prompted by a friend who wants us to come along.

Earlier in the evening we found ourselves sitting alone at a table, not knowing anyone else other than by sight waiting for the three people we did know to turn up.

The 'new' bar is a rather ugly construction, totally out of context with the rest of the village but proudly constructed by the local village council to house the bar, shop and apparently now, restaurant.

The village always has had a very small shop and bar, poorly attended. About 8 years ago it suddenly shut down, and we watched from afar to see what would happen. Eventually, the property was leased by a couple in their early 40s who ran a small shop and bar once more. We had originally hoped that it might be bought by someone who would run a shop and restaurant, but to be honest, this village is not really a 'restaurant' type of village. As tenants, their landlord being the local council, they were persuaded to move into the new building and run the new shop, bar and restaurant. We have yet to find out exactly what the restaurant is offering. However, the shop is small but reasonably stocked and not seriously overpriced. Last night wass our first foray into the new bar.

Due to a bit of a mix up, we were put with a couple and their son who we had not met before but we seemed to get along very well and (she said proudly) our team came a very close second (close that is to third and not to first!).

The other couple were very pleased that the 'usual' winners were well and truly thrashed this month and a new team took home the winners cup, for a whole month.

It is an ex-pat quiz in English, I should add at this point, but we were surprised at the number of English people who do live very close to us - we don't normally run into any of them, don't see them at the shops or anywhere so although they may get together once a month for a bit of light entertainment, it isn't exactly an 'English enclave' we are living in.

The banter and complaints are the same as you would find in the UK:

'The answer 'fish' shouldn't be accepted when the questions is 'what are the two main ingredients of a kedgeree', called one lady 'it must be smoked haddock, nothing else would be acceptable'.

She was over-ruled (probably by the team who needed a point from 'fish' to stay in the running.

Pop music was the one category we were dreading, but the questions were kind.

- What number relates to the Rolling Stones' nervous breakdown?
- Who was waiting for Robert Di Nero?
- What wasn't it unusual to see Tom Jones do in 'It's Not Unusual'?

We did very well. Surprisingly we also did well on the category 'film'.

But our moment of glory came when one of our team recognised the 'mystery person' was Spike Milligan from the first 5 words of a 25 word clue. He'd hardly said a word all night but his quick response managed to win our second place. Well done to him.

By the way, does anyone out there know the number of grams of fat in a Big Mac?

Would you want to?