Read it Or Weep

Warning! this isn't about eating. Books are delicious, but inedible. If you dislike over-sharey memes, you can skip this whole post.

Here's the deal: Bets passed this meme on a while back (it was on Ravelry, but I missed it there), and since I aspire to read all the good books I can get my hands on I held onto the list so that I could post my results one day. Apparently, the list below contains the top 106 books most often marked “unread” on LibraryThing (I'm a Goodreads user, myself).

The instructions I received from Bets were to "bold the ones you’ve read, note the ones you read for school, and italicize the ones you started but didn’t finish." I also noted the books I haven't read but bought, planning to read. I still could read them one of these days. I still own them, after all. They're on the shelf!

Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell
Anna Karenina -- I own this.
Crime and Punishment
Catch-22 (in high school)
One Hundred Years of Solitude
Wuthering Heights
The Silmarillion -- I own this.
Life of Pi : a novel
The Name of the Rose -- I own this.
Don Quixote -- I own this.
Moby Dick -- I own this.
Ulysses
Madame Bovary
The Odyssey (college)
Pride and Prejudice
Jane Eyre
The Tale of Two Cities (high school)
The Brothers Karamazov -- I own this.
Guns, Germs, and Steel: the fates of human societies -- I own this.
War and Peace
Vanity Fair
The Time Traveler’s Wife
The Iliad (college)
Emma
The Blind Assassin
The Kite Runner
Mrs. Dalloway (college)
Great Expectations
American Gods
A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius
Atlas Shrugged
Reading Lolita in Tehran : a memoir in books
Memoirs of a Geisha
Middlesex -- I own this.
Quicksilver -- I own this and got about 50 pages from the end.
Wicked : the life and times of the wicked witch of the West
The Canterbury Tales
The Historian : a novel
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
Love in the Time of Cholera
Brave New World
The Fountainhead
Foucault’s Pendulum
Middlemarch
Frankenstein (high school)
The Count of Monte Cristo
Dracula (high school)
A Clockwork Orange (high school)
Anansi Boys
The Once and Future King
The Grapes of Wrath (high school)
The Poisonwood Bible : a novel
1984
Angels & Demons
The Inferno (and Purgatory and Paradise)
The Satanic Verses
Sense and Sensibility
The Picture of Dorian Gray
Mansfield Park
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
To the Lighthouse
Tess of the D’Urbervilles
Oliver Twist
Gulliver’s Travels
Les Misérables (high school)
The Corrections
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay ***I LOVE THIS BOOK!**** [That's Bets' note, but I totally agree.]
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
Dune -- I own this.
The Prince
The Sound and the Fury
Angela’s Ashes : a memoir
The God of Small Things
A People’s History of the United States : 1492-present -- I own this.
Cryptonomicon
Neverwhere - Why haven't I read this?!
A Confederacy of Dunces
A Short History of Nearly Everything
Dubliners
The Unbearable Lightness of Being
Beloved (high school?)
Slaughterhouse-five (high school?)
The Scarlet Letter (high school)
Eats, Shoots & Leaves
The Mists of Avalon
Oryx and Crake : a novel
Collapse : how societies choose to fail or succeed
Cloud Atlas
The Confusion
Lolita
Persuasion
Northanger Abbey
The Catcher in the Rye (high school)
On the Road
The Hunchback of Notre Dame
Freakonomics : a rogue economist explores the hidden side of everything
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance : an inquiry into values
The Aeneid
Watership Down
Gravity’s Rainbow - I thought we had a copy of this, but couldn't find it when I went to look on the shelf.
The Hobbit
In Cold Blood : a true account of a multiple murder and its consequences
White Teeth
Treasure Island
David Copperfield
The Three Musketeers

The Sweet Hundred

Here's a photo of someone sweet decorating something sweet to start us off (taken a few years ago on a field trip to Christopher Norman Chocolates). Yeah, the link is weak, but I like the shot.

Now - remember the Omnivore 100? There have been several permutations since (Vegetarian 100, Vegan 100, British 100, etc.) that didn't interest me all that much (not that I don't like vegetarian or vegan food), but now someone's made a list of foods to try for those of us who enjoy the sweet stuff (it's mostly baked goods, though, not candy or chocolates). See Cakespy for the original Sweet 100 list.

Once again, I ask, "Who remembers every food they've ever tried?" I had to add the category of foods that sound really familiar and which I probably have eaten. I've also adapted the instructions given so that instead of bolding or changing the text color of things I've eaten (which never looks right and is hard to read when some things are linked), I just split the items up into their categories. Here are the instructions that I didn't follow, in case you like rules.

1) Copy this list into your site, including the instructions!
2) Bold all of the sweets you've eaten--or make them a different type color.
3) Cross out any of them that you'd never ever eat.

4) Consider anything that is not bold or crossed out your "To Do" List.
5) Optional: Post a comment here linking to your results--or just post a comment letting us know how many you've tried, or what you're going to try next!

I've eaten you (54):
1. Red Velvet Cake
3. Whoopie Pie
4. Apple Pie either topped or baked with sharp cheddar
5. Beignet
6. Baklava
7. Black and white cookie
9. Fried Fruit pie (sometimes called hand pies)
11. Just-fried (still hot) doughnut
12. Scone with clotted cream
13. Betty, Grunt, Slump, Buckle or Pandowdy
14. Halvah
15. Macarons
16. Banana pudding with nilla wafers
17. Bubble tea (with tapioca "pearls")
18. Dixie Cup
19. Rice Krispie treats
21. Blondies
23. Girl Scout cookies
24. Moon cake
25. Candy Apple
27. Brooklyn Egg Cream
30. King Cake
32. Pavlova
34. Trifle
36. Key Lime Pie (made with real key lime)
37. Panna Cotta
38. New York Cheesecake
40. Russian Tea Cake / Mexican Wedding Cake
42. Pizzelle
44. Buckeyes
46. Moon Pie
47. Dutch baby
49. Homemade chocolate chip cookies
50. Pralines
53. Daifuku
54. Green tea cake or cookies
55. Cupcakes from a cupcake shop
56. Crème brûlée
57. Some sort of deep fried fair food (twinkie, candy bar, cupcake)
58. Yellow cake with chocolate frosting
60. Pop Tarts
62. An "upside down" dessert (Pineapple upside down cake or Tarte Tatin)
64. Jell-O from a mold
65. Black forest cake
71. Angel Food Cake
72. Mincemeat pie
76. Pain au chocolat
77. A piece of Gingerbread House
79. Cannoli
82. Petits fours
85. Rugelach
86. Hamenstashen
93. S'mores
99. Animal crackers


I am pretty sure I've eaten you but I am not positive I remember correctly (17):
8. Seven Layer Bar (also known as the Magic Bar or Hello Dolly bars)
26. Baked Alaska
33. Tres Leches Cake
39. Napoleon / mille-fueille
48. Boston Cream Pie
52. Rusks
59. Jelly Roll
66. Mock Apple Pie (Ritz Cracker Pie)
69. Churro
70. Stollen
80. Rainbow cookies
83. Chocolate Souffle
89. Pie or cake made with candy bar flavors (Snickers pie, Reeses pie, etc)
90. Divinity
91. Coke or Cola cake
95. Bananas foster or other flaming dessert
97. Sables


I know I haven't eaten you yet (29):
2. Princess Torte
10. Kringle
20. Alfajores
22. Croquembouche
28. Nanaimo bar
29. Baba au rhum
31. Sachertorte
35. Shoofly Pie
41. Anzac biscuits
43. Kolache
45. Malasadas
51. Gooey butter cake
61. Charlotte Russe
63. Hummingbird Cake
67. Kulfi
68. Linzer torte
73. Concha
74. Opera Cake
75. Sfogliatelle / Lobster tail
78. Cassata
81. Religieuse
84. Bienenstich (Bee Sting Cake)
87. Homemade marshmallows
88. Rigo Janci
92. Gateau Basque
94. Figgy Pudding
96. Joe Froggers
98. Millionaire's Shortbread
100. Basbousa

I could never eat you:
*Funny. Nothing ended up in this category.

I'm almost an omnivore

A Very Good Taste came up with a list of 100 food items an omnivore should try. So I've followed the instructions to copy the list, bold items I've tried, and strike out those I would never try. I hate to say "never" to food, but I've kept my current dietary restrictions in mind (I don't eat beef and rarely eat pork), knowing they could change.

I also have an aversion to "novelty meats," animals I would only eat if I were starving (deer, rabbits, squirrel, snake, etc.). That said, I would probably be willing to try my "never" foods just once in the right situation. For example, I would like to be willing to eat just about anything while traveling in another country, so as to not insult a potential host. But I'm sure I'd find there are limits to that.

I had to add a third category and italicize things I might have had. I'm not actually very picky and I've eaten/drunk a lot of things in my life so far, trying things at school and food fairs and off people's plates in foreign restaurants where I wasn't sure what I was eating. I can't remember all the details!!

The VGT Omnivore’s Hundred:

1. Venison - I think I had this as a kid.
2. Nettle tea
3. Huevos rancheros - I must have tried them at least once.
4. Steak tartare - but I do like tuna tartare.
5. Crocodile
6. Black pudding
7. Cheese fondue
8. Carp - I don't know. probably. Is carp that memorable?
9. Borscht
10. Baba ghanoush
11. Calamari
12. Pho
13. PB&J sandwich
14. Aloo gobi - love!
15. Hot dog from a street cart
16. Epoisses
17. Black truffle
18. Fruit wine made from something other than grapes - could be I've had this.
19. Steamed pork buns - might have tried someone's pork buns once
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 - I've had chowder and I've had soup in a bowl. No idea if they were ever combined.
33. Salted lassi - was my lassi salted?
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 - I would eat this only in a foreign country.
42. Whole insects - If only I'd gotten the cricket tacos in Mexico. I was full!
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
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
93. Rose harissa
94. Catfish
95. Mole poblano
96. Bagel and lox
97. Lobster Thermidor
98. Polenta
99. Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee
100. Snake

p.s. Sorry that the links make this list a little hard to read. I should go through and remove them, but I'm not going to do that.