List Item: Try 500 of the 1001 Foods You Must Try Before You Die
It was late November and that could only mean one thing for me, time to break the three year gap and attend the BBC Good Food show at the NEC in Birmingham. There is a London version but the Birmingham has the bigger one, with many more booths to peruse. Also, sometimes it is just nice to get out of the city… and go to an exhibition centre in another one.
I figured that this would be the opportunity to sample a bunch of things that come from the list. However, since I am not made of money I was not able to completely buy out the spices booth so I have not been able to go as far as I could… but maybe next year.
Food item: Cold-pressed Rapeseed Oil
Okay, so this was one of the first booths we came across and it set the pace for 4-5 hours of sampling. They had a lot of varieties of oil and I tried out two of these. The plain version (for the sake of the list), which was light and nutty, and the smoked version which I am not wishing that I had bought in order to create some salad dressings.
Food item: Shortbread
This is a biscuit that I could have done a while ago but I was in an all day meeting when these biscuits were circulating around the office. I do love the buttery sweetness of shortbread, and this company were selling a number of flavours. The Earl Gray shortbread in particular was rather delicious.
Food item: Panettone
Over the way from the stand with the shortbread was one with a lot of panettones on offer for sale/sampling. Now, I have never had a good panettone in the past, mainly because I found them to be dry and a little bit flavourless. The one that was on offer here was actually really nice. It was moist, buttery and loaded with raisins. If it wasn’t for the fact that I couldn’t factor in consuming most of this by myself I might have ended up going home with one.
Food item: Kelly Bronze Turkey
This was the find of the day. We were due to buy a whole one of these for Christmas (which is expensive) just for the sake of me trying some for the list. With this £4 roll I was able to check off something from the increasingly difficult meat section of the list. Needless to say, this is some of the best turkey that I ever had. It was moist with the dark meat having a slightly gamey taste and the white meat having a taste not too unlike the partridge I had not too long ago.
Food item: Habanero Chile
Since I would never be fool enough to try one of these by itself, I mean it IS a chile pepper after all. So here it was flavouring a jam together with banana. I am sure glad there was a fruit helping to tone down the heat since it was still rather pronounced. There was also a touch of citrus here which I didn’t expect.
Food item: Piccalilli
The final food of the show. As a kid this was something I never really liked since it has a rather strong taste. Now that I am older and I have tried jellyfish something that is essentially vegetables pickled in mustard. It was spicy and the vegetables were, surprisingly, not soggy but still firm to the bite.
Progress: 295/500
Before I Kick 