A super grouchy version of "Vegan's 100"

I'm jumping on this internet food blog list craze, even though I'm not really sure what the point of noting foods I have eaten or would never eat really is, or why anyone should care. I also don't know what it is all supposed to say about me. It's pretty damn privileged to fetishize food in this way. I'm going to provide notes, which isn't in the instructions, because I guess then it becomes about prompting stories rather than just obsessing about food.

Yeah, I don't know what the point is, but I can never sleep and it's something to do.

Here are the instructions for the "Vegan's 100" challenge. It comes from the "Omnivore's 100," which is pointless for me to try. Also, the word "challenge" can't be right, can it? I must have made it up to make myself seem more Olympian in taking on the task, or something.

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VEGAN'S 100

Your mission, should you choose to accept it:

1) Copy this list into your own blog, including these instructions. (google it to find a clean list w/o my dumb notes)
2) Bold all the items you’ve eaten.
3) Cross out any items that you would never consider eating. (don't know how to cross out on this blog template so am putting a bold x next to those)
4) Post a comment here once you’ve finished and link your post back to this one.
5) Pass it on!

1. Natto Determined to like it back in the day; mostly succeeded. Pictured above.
2. Green Smoothie frozen mango, frozen pineapple, water, and spinach is how I like it
3. Tofu Scramble Like it best when others prepare it for me
4. Haggis X I'm flummoxed about why this is on the vegan list.
5. Mangosteen
6. Creme brulee not a big dessert person but I like the way the burned sugar makes the crust for your spoon to break through
7. Fondue childhood New Year's Eve food (family tradition)
8. Marmite/Vegemite Tried during a student's Australia presentation
9. Borscht I love beets but I'm underwhelmed/grossed out by borscht.
10. Baba ghanoush A fine use of eggplant
11. Nachos Loved to eat them with giant margaritas at the Del Rio in Ann Arbor. Del Rio is gone, as is my desire for nachos.
12. Authentic soba noodles Taught how to make them from scratch by a sweatband-wearing grandpa in Toyota City
13. PB&J sandwich Who hasn't?
14. Aloo gobi When is the last time I ate Indian food, anyway?
15. Taco from a street cart
16. Boba Tea I had to google it to find out that it's bubble tea. I've tried it but didn't quite get what the big thing was.
17. Black truffle This may or may not be what Carrie's neighbor handed over the fence to us after a lucrative mushroom gathering day.
18. Fruit wine made from something other than grapes Cherry wine and plum wine. They are way too sweet, but some version of me once liked them.
19. Gyoza I like the frozen vegetable gyoza from Trader Joe's.
20. Vanilla ice cream Suffered teasing over my preference for it above all other exotic flavors
21. Heirloom tomatoes accidentally spent a crazy amount of money on them last summer (learned valuable lesson about noticing prices)
22. Fresh wild berries Wistful about berry patches of my youth.
23. Ceviche X
24. Rice and beans I was a Vegetarian College Student
25. Knish
26. Raw scotch bonnet pepper X
27. Dulce de leche Went through a weird phase in Japan where I would buy tiny one- or two-serving containers of dulce de leche or rum raisin ice cream, two flavors that I had never wanted before and haven't since.
28. Caviar Awkward "fancy restaurant after treating me to VIP sumo tournament experience" situation with student and her mom
29. Baklava A bad choice for the cavity-prone (me)
30. Pate X
31. Wasabi peas I like them, but can't eat them now that I'm gluten free. Yeah, I've recently become that much more annoying to feed. My stomach isn't killing me all the time, though.
32. Chowder in a sourdough bowl X
33. Mango lassiMango tastes like sunshine and rainbows. I'll take it in any form.
34. Sauerkraut
35. Root beer float Sometimes we blended it to make a cooler.
36. Mulled ciderThe cider mill I pass on my way to and from school just opened for the season, which is sort of tragic, summer-wise. I get excited about mulled cider, but usually end up drinking my cider cold, instead.
37. Scones with buttery spread and jam The Swan tea room, London
38. Vodka jelly
39. Gumbo Howe's Bayou has vegetarian gumbo now
40. Fast food french fries I'm sure I ate enough fries in my 0-16 years to even out the last twenty, in which I haven't eaten any.
41. Raw Brownies
42. Fresh Garbanzo Beans Or maybe I haven't. What is a "fresh" garbanzo bean? I will say that I have never met a garbanzo bean I didn't like, so if I had the chance to eat a fresh one, I definitely did.
43. Dahl I used to cook this a lot.
44. Homemade Soymilk
45. Wine from a bottle worth £60/$120 or more
46. Stroopwafle
47. Samosas Saturdays, street vendor in flea market district of Nagoya
48. Vegetable Sushi My top takeout (clarification: My only takeout)
49. Glazed doughnut Possibly never actually enjoyed it.
50. Seaweed Love to eat nori by the crispy sheet.
51. Prickly pear
52. Umeboshi Near-daily lunch in Japan consisted of a seaweed-wrapped rice triangle (onigiri) with umeboshi at the center, from convenience store. Wish our 7-11 sold that.
53. Tofurkey Expensive, depressing, gross.
54. Sheese
55. Cotton candy Carnival, Warren, OH
56. Gnocchi My free-association brain says, "mommy."
57. Piña colada X
58. Birch beer
59. Scrapple X
60. Carob chips I was a Hippie Day Care Employee
61. S’mores Preferably slightly charred.
62. Soy curls
63. Chickpea cutlets
64. Curry Indian style, Japanese style
65. Durian Just dried, not fresh.
66. Homemade Sausages Why is this on the vegan list??? Or...I guess there is a recipe in Vegan with a Vengeance that I would try for white bean and tempeh sausage
67. Churros, elephant ears, or funnel cake My sister was the real elephant ear aficionado.
68. Smoked tofui used to eat this kind of thing a lot. what do i eat now? this list is full of things i used to eat.
69. Fried plantain
70. Mochi Every year in Japan, several old and young people choke on it and die while celebrating the arrival of a new year.
71. Gazpacho I only made it once this summer, which seems incredibly sad right now
72. Warm chocolate chip cookies The Saturn dealership never had the fresh, warm cc cookies the ad campaigns promised. They were boxed and heated, I believe.
73. Absinthe
74. Corn on the cob Weird to think some people haven't tried it. I'm all midwestern America-centric like that.
75. Whipped cream, straight from the can
76. Pomegranate Tastes good but dries out my teeth.
77. Fauxstess Cupcake X
78. Mashed potatoes with gravy Like the potatoes, hate everything about gravy
79. Jerky X
80. Croissants I'm not sure I have every had one that is the correct consistency/flakiness. It's usually a plastic-wrapped feature of some begrudging, last-ditch attempt to feed myself when there is nothing else for the vegetarian/sugarphobe at the breakfast meeting.
81. French onion soup I made a labor-intensive vegetarian version for a date once. Something happened - a culinary disaster of some type. I have blocked it out, but it reverberates in my inability to date and my disinterest in french onion soup.
82. Savory crepes Eaten in Paris, at a creperie near our hotel on our "spoiled suburban high school student art history trip" (thanks, mom and dad)
83. Tings
84. A meal at Candle 79
85. Moussaka A way to ruin eggplant
86. Sprouted grains or seeds I've eaten many a health food restaurant salad in my day.
87. Macaroni and “cheese”
88. Flowers I once put them on top of a stir-fry, back before I was bitter and hopeless.
89. Matzoh ball soup
90. White chocolate Easter basket bunnies. Always gave them to my mom (coincidence?)
91. Seitan I can't eat it without thinking of the Mol Triffid song, "Satin Rules," about people trying to be all bad-ass and spelling Satan wrong in their grafitti.
92. Kimchi Question: Why don't I ever go out for Korean food anymore?
93. Butterscotch chips Was thinking about butterscotch today, possibly because of my fake caged classroom pet by the same name.
94. Yellow watermelon
95. Chili with chocolate After disliking chocolate my whole life, I have come to understand that I like very, very dark chocolate with something spicy in it.
96. Bagel and Tofutti
97. Potato milk
98. Polenta Mollie can prepare it best.
99. Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee
100. Raw cookie dough annual stomachache after xmas cookie making

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There. Fascinating, I'm sure. I killed an hour. I took my mind off some stuff. My eyes are a little tired. I hope a will sleep. Of all these foods, I would like to dream about butterscotch, which seems like a warm, safe, childhood kind of food. Please, no dreams about potato milk. That seems upsetting even to me. I imagine the potatoes hooked up to a milking machine, producing super starchy milk. Ugh.