Ever since I was a little girl, I’ve loved food more than almost anything else. For one thing, this is probably good, considering food is fairly necessary for ensuring survival; for another, I’ve always found it a strangely deep well of inspiration for writing.

This can be problematic. For much of my childhood, I had a hard time writing any story that didn’t devolve into little more than an extensive menu.

However, I do think that the way that a person eats is highly indicative of the way they approach life and custom and aesthetic and risk-taking and pleasure and heritage. If a character chooses to eschew cheeseburgers in favor of tabouleh, it sets an immediate, concrete idea in the reader’s head of how that person would approach other situations. Food is very important.

One of the quirkiest things about me is how I handle this love of food writing.

I mean, I collect recipes, both recipes that I intend (or do) make, and others that I know I never will — normal.

In college, I wrote restaurant reviews and a culinary column for the school paper — moderately normal.

I collect selected sentences from restaurant reviews from sources ranging from podunk local papers to Food & Wine Magazine over the last three decades — abnormal.

I have a HUGE box of food- and restaurant-related magazine articles, newspaper articles, and my favorite adjectival culinary sentences. I’m talking a good 20-25 pounder box. It shares some space with other cutouts from newspapers, magazines, and catalogues, but it’s mostly food. I call it my “inspiration box.” I spent hundreds of hours in middle school and high school organizing it down to the letter and cataloguing everything in it as best I could to its source material, although considering I was five when I started collecting material, a lot of the original sources have evaded me.

But let me tell you, very few things can cheer me up or calm me down quite like going through my collection box.

One of my favorite passages is also one of the most sentimental and simplistic. It comes from The Chicago Daily Herald, easily twelve or thirteen years ago now.

“My maternal grandmother, Nana, made a tuna casserole that comforted me from early kidhood. Only egg noodles, full-fat sour cream, and canned baby peas would do in her heart-warming creation. When Nana swept her tuna casserole from the oven, the crushed-potato-chip topping glistened with a golden hue. …My comfort food list runs long. In no particular order: long-simmered, all-beef chili; buttery mashed potatoes and creamy gravy; baked macaroni and cheese with a buttered breadcrumb crust; Campbell’s cream of mushroom soup; Toll House recipe chocolate-chip cookies; franks and beans prepared with butcher-shop-prepared franks; flapjacks dripping with butter and maple syrup, paired with forget-the-saturated-fat-and-cholesterol pan-fried, crisp bacon; a corned beef sandwich on fine-grained but moist and dense rye bread smeared with sharp brown mustard; 1950s Coca-Cola served ice cold from a 6-ounce glass bottle; Hostess-brand cupcakes; perfectly cooked pot roast that falls apart at a whisper; Three Musketeers candy bars; and last but not least, made-from-real-eggs-and-real-mayonnaise egg salad scooped onto good-quality white sandwich bread topped with shredded, crisp iceberg lettuce.”

This fascinates me because it’s so evocative of the nostalgic beliefs of the writer, whose name escaped my scissors’ path around the article, but I know he was male. The choices he listed and the diction — “Nana,” “flapjacks,” “franks” — reminds me of a Norman Rockwell painting. The choices that this ‘character,’ for that’s how I’ve always seen him, made for his “comfort foods” are so Traditionally American, so fifties housewives’ specialties, create something — someone — tangible for me.

The idea of “comfort food” fascinates me, because it never occurred to me until I moved to New York City that one person’s comfort food could be another’s exotic experiment. Unagi maki is a comfort food for me; has been for about five years now. Some people I know find it squicky. I had a friend in elementary school whose ultimate comfort food was tuna salad made with sugar.

I find that squicky.

With the interest of varied ideas of “comfort” food and “good” food in mind, about a year ago I stumbled across The VGT Omnivore’s Hundred, which is prefaced with this challenge:

Below is a list of 100 things that I think every good omnivore should have tried at least once in their life. The list includes fine food, strange food, everyday food and even some pretty bad food – but a good omnivore should really try it all.

The VGT writers, Jill and Andrew, think these 100 foods are all worth putting in my mouth?

In the interest of culinary and character curiosity, I’ll give it a shot.

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.

The VGT Omnivore’s Hundred

1. Steak tartare
5. Crocodile
6. Black pudding
7. PB&J
8. Carp
9. Borscht
10. Baba ghanoush
11. Calamari
12. Pho
13. Cheese fondue
14. Aloo gobi
15. Hot dog from a street cart
16. Epoisses
17. Black truffle
18. Fruit wine made from something other than grapes
19. Steamed pork buns
20. Pistachio ice cream
21. Heirloom tomatoes
22. Fresh wild berries
23. Foie gras
24. Rice and beans
25. Brawn, or head cheese
26. Raw Scotch Bonnet pepper
27. Dulce de leche
28. Oysters
29. Baklava
30. Bagna cauda
31. Wasabi peas
32. Clam chowder in a sourdough bowl
33. Salted lassi
34. Sauerkraut
35. Root beer float
36. Cognac with a fat cigar
37. Clotted cream tea
38. Vodka jelly/Jell-O
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
46. Fugu
47. Chicken tikka masala
48. Eel
49. Krispy Kreme original glazed doughnut
50. Sea urchin
51. Prickly pear
52. Umeboshi
53. Abalone
54. Paneer
55. McDonald’s Big Mac Meal
56. Spaetzle
57. Dirty gin martini
58. Beer above 8% ABV
59. Poutine
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
71. Gazpacho
72. Caviar and blini
73. Louche absinthe
74. Gjetost, or brunost
75. Roadkill
76. Baijiu
77. Hostess Fruit Pie Cherry
78. Snail
79. Lapsang souchong
80. Bellini
81. Tom yum
82. Eggs Benedict
83. Pocky
84. Tasting menu at a three-Michelin-star restaurant
85. Kobe beef
86. Hare
87. Goulash
88. Flowers
89. Horse
90. Criollo chocolate
91. Spam
92. Soft shell crab Crab
93. Rose harissa
94. Catfish
95. Mole poblano
96. Bagel and lox
97. Lobster Thermidor
98. Polenta
99. Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee
100. Snake

Shortly after the meme went viral, Barbara of Tigers & Strawberries, a foodblog with lovely, lovely imagery, made her own list — The Vegetarian’s Hundred — which played well into my theory that the foods any person or character could choose to be their “must-eats” is highly indicative of her personality. While her meme started with the same basic instructions as the VGT, she also offered this insight, which made me feel smart and observant, even though it’s also fairly obvious –

I think that lists like this very definitely show the biases of the list maker. I am certain that many things about my personality, cooking style and food biases can be inferred from this list.

Mostly I think I like finding out that other people agree with me on ideas. It makes me feel justified.

The Vegetarian Hundred

1. Real macaroni and cheese, made from scratch and baked
2. Tabouleh
3. Freshly baked bread, straight from the oven (preferably with homemade strawberry jam)
4. Fresh figs
5. Fresh pomegranate
6. Indian dal of any sort
7. Imam bayildi
8. Pressed spiced Chinese tofu
9. Freshly made hummus
10. Tahini
11. Kimchi
12. Miso
13. Falafel
14. Potato and pea filled samosas
15. Homemade yogurt
16. Muhammara
17. Brie en croute
18. Spanikopita
19. Fresh, vine-ripened heirloom tomatoes
20. Insalata caprese
21. Stir-fried greens (gai lan, bok choi, pea shoots, kale, chard or collards)
22. Freshly made salsa
23. Freshly made guacamole
24. Creme brulee
25. Fava beans
26. Chinese cold sesame peanut noodles
27. Fattoush
28. New potatoes
29. Coleslaw
30. Ratatouille
31. Baba ganoush
32. Winter squash
33. Roasted beets
34. Baked sweet potatoes
35. Plantains
36. Chocolate truffles
37. Garlic mashed potatoes
38. Fresh water chestnuts
39. Steel cut oats
40. Quinoa
41. Grilled portabello mushrooms
42. Chipotle en adobo
43. Stone ground whole grain cornmeal
44. Freshly made corn or wheat tortillas
45. Frittata
46. Basil pesto
47. Roasted garlic
48. Raita of any type
49. Mango lassi
50. Jasmine rice (white or brown)
51. Thai vegetarian coconut milk curry
52. Pumpkin in any form other than pie
53. Fresh apple pear or plum gallette
54. Quince in any form
55. Escarole, endive or arugula
56. Sprouts other than mung bean
57. Naturally brewed soy sauce
58. Dried shiitake mushrooms
59. Unusually colored vegetables (purple cauliflower, blue potatoes, chocolate bell peppers…)
60. Fresh peach ice cream
61. Chevre
62. Medjool dates
63. Kheer
64. Flourless chocolate cake
65. Grilled corn on the cob
66. Black bean (or any other bean) vegetarian chili
67. Tempeh
68. Seitan or wheat gluten
69. Gorgonzola or any other blue veined cheese
70. Sweet potato fries
71. Homemade au gratin potatoes
72. Cream of asparagus soup
73. Artichoke-Parmesan dip
74. Mushroom risotto
75. Fermented black beans
76. Garlic scapes
77. Fresh new baby peas
78. Kalamata olives
79. Preserved lemons
80. Fried green tomatoes
81. Chinese scallion pancakes
82. Cheese souffle
83. Fried apples
84. Homemade frijoles refritos
85. Pasta fagiole
86. Macadamia nuts in any form
87. Paw paw in any form
88. Grilled cheese sandwich of any kind
89. Paneer cheese
90. Ma Po Tofu (vegetarian style–no pork!)
91. Fresh pasta in any form
92. Grilled leeks, scallions or ramps
93. Green papaya salad
94. Baked grain and vegetable stuffed tomatoes
95. Pickled ginger
96. Methi greens
97. Aloo paratha
98. Kedgeree (the original Indian version without the smoked fish, not the British version with fish)
99. Okra
100. Roasted brussels sprouts

My own comfort foods are thick-sliced toast with lots of butter and salt&pepper, either seven-grain, sourdough, or soft sweet yellow bread — toast is best with milktea at night; broccoli-cheddar casserole from a recipe given to my mom by my first-grade teacher, with crumbled crackers on top; a particularly fattening chicken salad that I based off a recipe from Sleepover Friends when I was nine, with canned chicken and cream cheese and chili sauce and scallions; my grandmother’s green creme jello and my aunt’s spinach stuffed shell pasta; lemonade with pulp and sour enough to make your eyes water with each sip; cream of mushroom soup, which I fell in love with at summer camp the one week of my life that I went to summer camp; Tollhouse cookies; unagi maki, kinako mochi, and miso soup; and of course “tostada dip,” which has nothing to do with tostadas at all and everything to do with cream cheese, cheddar, and mild salsa.

What are yours?