Food bucket lists

November 29, 2023 by
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People often make “bucket lists” of things they really want to do before they die. For some it’s a vacation destination they want to visit, for others it’s a personal challenge like running a marathon. While I don’t have a bucket list, if I did it would probably revolve around food, and by extension, cookbooks. For example, I recently read an article in Saveur about the pawpaw, a fruit that is indigenous to the eastern part of North America. Despite having lived in West Virginia, one of the places pawpaw trees grow in the wild, for over a decade, I never tried one of these interesting fruits. How could I live there so long and never try this (apparently) delicious native fruit? This would go on my bucket list if I ever put one to paper.

Pawpaw pudding from The New York Times by Sheri Castle

Mimi Sheraton made a great bucket list with her 2015 book 1,000 Foods to Eat Before You Die: A Food Lover’s Life List. I haven’t done a checklist to see how many of these items I have eaten, but I’m sure I would pick up many more things I’d like to try someday from that book. There are other items that I am curious about, like Vegemite and durian, but I also know there are foods that I am okay with not experiencing. I don’t want to eat the brains of any animal, for starters. I’m also not keen on trying kopi luwak (aka civet coffee), even though I’m a coffee fiend.

One of the blessings in my life is that I have been able to try a wide variety of foods that were never available to my parents or grandparents. My grandparents grew up during the Depression where food was scarce in general, and they didn’t travel much. Neither did my parents, so my childhood was spent eating a diet limited to the items found in the small grocery store in our tiny town, or things we could grow in our garden, which mainly consisted of fresh versions of items sold in said store. I didn’t even see an avocado until I was well into my twenties, much less eat one.

It was after I moved far away from home after college that I was able to broaden my food horizons and once that fuse was lit, it burned with a white-hot intensity. I wanted to try everything, which led me to hole-in-the-wall spots in every city I traveled to, plus buying cookbooks and making things at home that I saw on television or read about in a magazine. Moving to a large city meant exploring Asian, Hispanic, African, and Middle Eastern markets to find ingredients that childhood me didn’t even know existed.

There are obvious gaps in my food exploration, as the paw-paw example shows, but I have slayed any food bucket list I could have envisioned as a child. There are so many interesting foods left to explore that there is no way I could ever check off everything from my list. Even if I made every meal for the rest of my life from the cookbooks I already own, I wouldn’t even hit half the recipes in the books. Obviously that won’t stop me from trying different foods (or buying more cookbooks). And I will hopefully get around to eating a pawpaw.

Category: Antipasto

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5 Comments

  • Indio32  on  November 30, 2023

    Thanks Darcie, very interesting read.

  • Jane  on  November 30, 2023

    Like you Darcie I didn’t have an adventurous childhood as regards food though my mother was reasonably open-minded for the times. With 5 kids in the family we rarely ate in restaurants so it was only after I moved to London for college that my experience grew. My cookbook collection really started there and my home cooking and entertaining became much more adventurous. Add travel and expense-account eating out and my knowledge grew quickly, to the extent that when I was 27 I won a contest run by the London Evening Standard called ‘The Great Gourmet’ (the prize was a trip to Bordeaux and lunch at Château Mouton Rothschild with the Baroness). So I decided to take a look at my copy of 1,000 Foods to Eat Before You Die. Full marks in the first section for British and Irish. I only looked through the next section, France and got 70%. I’m not sure how many of the gaps in my experience will go onto a wishlist as they require travel to a specific region or restaurant. But I definitely now want to try Bar-le-Duc Confiture de Grosseilles, a currant jelly. And Narbonne honey. It might be expensive to check out the rest of the book!

  • JaniceKj  on  November 30, 2023

    Having been raised in a military family, we lived in a variety of areas that woke my interest in food, why it was tasteful for some, where did it grow, how to cook it, and such. My main outlet besides school, family and mom’s helper was in the kitchen. I can enjoy looking up a recipe, finding the ingredients (even ordering them online) and trying at least once (even if it’s not what expected). So, having my cookbook collection helps me do the traveling through like the yellow pages advertising, with my fingers… And now, to travel to Christmas in Europe, from baking to lefsa… back to my spot I go…

  • Jenny  on  November 30, 2023

    I will kick the “bucket” before I even get a fourth of the way down my bucket lists.

  • riley  on  December 1, 2023

    Jane…. Would love to hear about luncheon with the Duchess.

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