Foods to eat before you die!

As a committed foodie, especially to international cuisine, I periodically peruse food blog sites. Most are pretty average and mostly talk about fast food restaurants in the author's area or about what the author had for supper (oops, that one sound familiar!). Every now and then though, I stumble upon a truly ingenious site (The Traveler's Lunchbox). The blogger, Melissa Kronenthal, is an American who is married to a German and lives in Scotland (got all that?!). Her narrative is witty and insightful and the photographs are so sharp and life-like, you can almost smell the food in the picture!

One of Melissa's posts involved polling other food bloggers about foods they felt everyone should eat before they die. It isn't just a list of your favorite foods, it's meant to be a list of foods you think everyone should try before they die. She called it a "global food guide." Of course, I immediately became curious about what I would put on my own list. She restricted the food bloggers that she invited to participate to only five things. Since this is my blog site, I've decided to expand that to 10!!! I could use up 10 just listing favorite foods within my family! Upon further reflection however, most of those foods are comfort foods to me and aren't necessarily things I think everyone should try before they die.

Some of the foods listed in the post I totally agreed with and have even made it onto my own list (beignets and cafe au lait from Cafe du Monde in New Orleans) while others are simply grotesque to my taste buds (foie gras [ a French delicacy; the liver of a duck or goose that has been fattened by force feeding]). Being Cajun though, I have to ask myself how foie gras is much different from cracklins (fried pig fat from a freshly slaughtered pig for all my non-Cajun readers out there!). Although I loved cracklins growing up, I have to admit to having acquired an aversion to this boucherie-day delicacy.

Here's my stab at 10 foods I think everyone should try before they die. Of course for me, where and with whom these foods are eaten is what makes them so special that you have to try them before you die. In my mind, the experience of eating the food is as much a part of the sensory experience as is the taste itself.

1. Boiled crawfish eaten on a newspaper-covered table in the yard of any native of a South Louisiana bayou (preferably in Terrebonne or Lafourche parishes, but NEVER in a restaurant in the city of New Orleans!).

2. Chicken & sausage gumbo shared with great Cajun storey-tellers on Thanksgiving or Christmas day in a home filled with their extended family.

3. Beignets and cafe au lait from Cafe du Monde in the New Orleans French Quarter while a riverboat organ whistles on the Mississippi River.

4. Greek village salad (perfectly sun-ripened, still warm tomatoes, sliced cucumbers, green bell pepper, rings of raw red onions & kalamata olives topped with a rectangle of goat feta cheese, olive oil, white balsamic vinegar and oregano, thyme & sage) and fried calamari (squid) consumed while still in a Mediterranean soaked swim suit sitting under the shade of a beach side cafe on the island of Crete, Greece.

5. Spanish tapas (sizzling gambas al ajillo [garlic shrimp], marinated olives, Serrano ham, Spanish tortilla [potato, onion, garlic, eggs]) paired with a robust Spanish Rioja red wine enjoyed at a Flamenco bar on a hot summer night in the Andalusian region of southern Spain.

6. Caffe (espresso served in a demitasse cup) drank shot-style while standing at a bar in Torino, Italy.

7. Nutella crepe bought from a street vendor in Paris at the base of the Eiffel Tower.

8. Grilled garlic mahi-mahi (dorado or dolphin fish [no, not the cute Sea World kind!] served on a paper plate with spring greens salad and brown rice by a beach side food shack followed by dripping ripe mango bought from a road side fruit stand on the North Shore of Oahu, Hawaii.

9. Mint tea (green tea leaves, fresh spearmint & lots of sugar!) served from a silver teapot into an ornately painted glass so hot it burns your fingers and lips in a cafe in Tangier, Morocco.

10. Peking duck rolled in lotus-leaf pancakes with sweet sauce and green onions served on a table with a lazy-susan in a Beijing restaurant.

There are so many more things I could add, but I'd say these are the highlights. Please go to The Traveler's Lunchbox to read the responses from the original post and then post your own here on my travel blog.