Food as souvenirs?

[CrémeBrulée]

(inspired by FXAdam's post about National Spices under General Cooking Questions)

What foods have you or would you bring home after visiting another country, state or city?

I think food is one of the best ways to really bring back memories of an enjoyable stay somewhere. It can also make great gifts to friends and relatives.

I buy local honey wherever I go - got some delicious orange blossom honey in Florida some years ago, and am currently enjoying Czech dandelion honey on my toast.
In India I bought top quality tea to take home.
From Spain I brought home saffron, pimiento, olives, olive oil, lomo and jamon Serrano.
From Switzerland I brought chocolate and would have got some cheese if I had been going straight home.

What about you?

 

[GB]

Great thread! I can't wait to see what everyone writes. I have not traveled too much, but here is my small list. I brought back jerk seasoning from Jamaica. Rum and coffee from the Dominican Republic. NY I bring back my favorite rye bread and bagels and bialies. PA I brought back apple butter. That is all I can think of off the top of my head.

I moved this to the Today's menu and Food Talk forum.

 

[urmaniac13]

I think now that the vacuum packing is getting more spread, it is more possible to make cheeses a souvenir when they are properly packed. Cheeses would make great souvenirs from Italy, Holland, England, Denmark etc, also Speck, packed with the same method, from alps...
Chocoates also from Switzerland and Belgium, and some particulars from a few places I have been are...

Olives from Spain
Stroop Waffels from Holland
Mozart Balls from Austria
Cadbury's Roses from England
Sospiri (soft candy made of marzapan) from Sardinia

I will come back when I remember more... these are some items just came into my head!

 

[pdswife]

Oregano and basil from Greece
Vanilla and or vanilla beans from Mexico
Tea from England ( oh I wish I still had some)

The other thing we bring home
are seed packages. Tomatoes and other veggies from Greece
and flowers from where ever we go. They are so easy to pack and
our gardening friends really like them.

 

[Piccolina]

I moved continents but I haven't actually travelled around that much in my life. I wish I could go back to Canada and bring a whole grocery store with me! When I came back from my first visit in Ireland/England I brought lots of tea (gave it away as gifts), curds (lemon, etc), English toffees, Irish Guinness flavoured candies (again, gifts) and white chocolate malt balls.

 

[buckytom]

i've brought home:
lobsters from maine
chowdah from rhode island and boston
maple syrup and cheddar cheeses from vermont
apples, pumpkins, pears from upstate ny
live blue claw crabs from maryland and florida
mullet and sea trout from florida
tequila and kahlua from mexico
cuban cigars from canada
gosling's black seal rum and ginger beer from bermuda
oregano from jamaica (only kidding, in case customs is reading this)
buffalo meat, shoo fly pies, various artisan breads from the amish country, pennsylvania
cheddar cheese, whiskey, tea and brown bread from ireland
tillamook cheeses and jerkies, and smoked salmon from oregon
fresh frozen and smoked salmon from vancouver
kootenay and black tusk ales from british columbia, canada
river horse ales from southwestern new jersey/pennsylvania

 

[crewsk]

Stroop Waffels from Holland

Thank you so much urmaniac!!!! I had a friend growing up & her mother is Dutch. Well, to make a long story short, she made these every Christmas & would give my family a huge stack of them. I was trying the other day to remember what they were called! I loved those things & there is a little shop in Georgia that my mom & I usually go to every summer where I can buy them & the syrup. We didn't go this year but last year I came back with 3 pkgs of the waffles & a box of the Dutch chocolate sprinkles for chocolate sandwiches.

 

[urmaniac13]

Yeeees I love that stuff, too... dangerously addictive though!! It's been years since I was in Holland, I wish I knew how to reproduce them myself!!

 

[crewsk]

So do I & yes it is! From what I gathered from my friends mom, they were pretty tricky to make. I just know she made thse really thin waffles, sliced them in half to make them even thinner & put a layer of the syrup between each one. I don't think I'd have the patientce for it either!

 

[pdswife]

Thanks for reminding me bucky.
We also bring home booze from Mexico.
It's fun buying it there because of the huge
price difference.

 

[buckytom]

just remember to bring lots of bubble wrap to mexico. i always crack up when you see people retrieve their luggage with a big, wet stain on the side that smells of tequila.
and then they wonder why customs picks them out of the line.

 

[pdswife]

we just always carry our tequlia on the plane with us.
You never know when you'll need a drink or two. lol

 

[Dina]

Coffee! Ever since my BIL brought me some Kona from Hawaii, I've been hooked on buying coffee from the places I visit. When we visited Miami, we brought back some incredible Cuban coffee. My hubby and I are coffee lovers so every chance we'd get we'd get us a "cafe con leche"-famous Cuban phrase.

On our last vacation to Santa Fe, we brought back some of their state's vegetable "chile piquin". This pepper is harvested in the early fall. The bright red peppers are strung (chile ristras) and hung out to dry. This pepper has a distinct flavor of the south that I use in almost all my dishes.

We love to travel!

 

[PA Baker]

Whenever my parents or DH and I make it to the UP of Michigan we always bring home pasties (well, they bring them home for me--I'm the only fan!). When we went to Bermuda, I stocked up on true English Cadbury chocolate and Polo mints since they're impossible to find around here, and I brought coffee home from New Orleans a few years ago. And when we went to San Fran this past winter I brought home a bunch of food including ScharffenBerger chocolate and chocolate covered ginger, a couple flavored olive oils, and of course a nice little supply of wine!

 

[Ishbel]

Luckily, with the advent of the channel tunnel - a visit to Paris for lunch (from London, when we lived there) was only 3 hours away and therefore not impossible.

I used to buy wonderful French patisserie and breads, cheeses, wines and hams. Put them in a coolbox and they were still fresh by the time we got home!

When I travel to Italy, I always bring back extra virgin olive oil from Tuscany or Liguria, Balsamic vinegars, Parma ham and Parmesan cheese.

Greece, we bring back olives, olive oil and spices from the local markets.

 

[Andy M.]

Let me think...

Mexico - Tequila
Canada - Crown Royal
Aruba - About five extra pounds (Aruban rum isn't worth bringing back to your room, let alone back to the USA)
California - wine

 

[Home chef]

Wow! With all these well traveled people here I feel somewhat embarrased by saying the only food item we really ever brought back as a souvenir is rum cake from the Carribean and that rarely ever made it out of the plane. We would usually eat it and pass some to other passengers in flight.

 

[mudbug]

Come visit me in Virginia and I'll ensure that you go home with a Smithfield ham.

 

[Claire]

I love to food shop when I travel, and have brought home a wide variety of foods and drinks from places in my travels. Even the mundane-seeming -- there is a brand of green beans put out by Publix grocery stores, and when we're visiting family or friends in the south we buy a case (very thin, very green). Wine from Slovenia. Whiskey from Canada. Tequila and coffee liquers from Mexico. And spices from everywhere. Oh, noodles. Tea. Coffee. Anything that strikes me as different from what I can get "at home" (which is, in itself, a different story), I'm likely to pick up and carry home. AFTER I make sure it is legal (no, I'm not talking drugs here, it's mostly sausages that are often illegal coming from Europe, and fruit and vegatables moving in and out of California, Arizona, and Hawaii). Cheese! Oh, I could go on forever!

 

[Claire]

And yes, that Smithfield ham!!!