Odd food blogging.

In another list I made sometime this year, probably in the wake of trying sweetbreads at a tapas restaurant for the first time -- see the May 11 posting -- I itemized all the unusual foods I've eaten over the years.

It isn't a very long list, considering the years I've had to work on it. And the foods aren't all that unusual, except by finicky standards. It's one thing not to like a food you've tried, and tried at various stages of your life, since tastes change with age. But not to try something, just because it's outside your normal eating orbit? Can't understand that psychology.

Here's what I came up with: bear chili, reindeer pate, pigeon, sea and freshwater eel, alligator croquettes, bison, wild boar, durian (and durian ice cream), jack fruit, mangosteen, poke salad, rattlesnake, yak cheese and milk, jerk goat, green tea ice cream, lavender tea. I didn't count ostrich or escargot or frogs' legs or tripe or Chinese gooseberries -- all too pedestrian -- and I probably shouldn't have counted jerk goat either, since all you have to do is visit your neighborhood Jamaican restaurant. Eel is also questionable, since I've encountered it merely as a form of sushi, and so are the tropical fruits (durian, etc.). All I had to do in that case was visit a market in Singapore or Malaysia.

Perhaps I can add sweetbreads and elk to that list, as this year’s additions. 2003 hasn't been a total loss, in terms to trying new foods.