Share A Gourmet Food Basket With Your
Lover
A gourmet food basket is an excellent gift
for the man or woman who 'has everything'. Most gourmet
foods available in the delicatessens and supermarket
'delis' of western countries are derived from European
and Middle Eastern cuisines. Each culture has its own
range of gourmet or highly prized foodstuffs, and as a
result of large-scale migration, it's now possible for
most people to have the opportunity of trying delicacies
from around the globe. But in this article, we'll focus
primarily on European foods.
Gourmet gift baskets usually contain savory (or salty) foods,
although you can also buy gift baskets containing your favorite
sweets. Often these are primarily what we call 'junk food'.
Savory gourmet foods are a fabulous way to totally indulge the
senses, primarily the senses of taste, texture and smell. They
include foods like
Cheese
There are all kinds of wonderful cheeses available on your
supermarket shelves. Some of the most popular are
- Emmentaler (from Switzerland)
- Jahlsberg (from Norway)
- Gouda (from The Netherlands)
- Edam (from The Netherlands)
- Parmesan (from Italy)
- Romano (from Italy)
Olives
Most of the Mediterranean countries grow olives and pickle
them in a variety of marinades. Greek olives differ from
Italian olives because of the ingredients used in their
marinades.
Pickled & Marinated
Vegetables
Each country has its own specific recipes and methods of
pickling vegetables, most of which are delectable. Sun
dried tomatoes, pickled cucumbers, marinated eggplant,
artichoke hearts and marinated mushrooms are just a few of
the items available in this category.
Most gourmet foodstuffs have a high salt component. They
are astringent or tangy, as most marinades include vinegars
and oils. They stimulate the savory portions of our taste
buds.
Dried Breads
Again, every country has its wheat-based gourmet products,
from crisp breads to papadams. They provide an excellent
base on which to add a combination of ingredients, much
like a standard savory biscuit or cracker.
Smoked Seafood
You can include a variety of seafood products in a gourmet
treat. Pickled herrings, smoked oysters, smoked mussels or
clams all blend well with other savory gourmet
products.
Pates And Meats
Pates are used as spreads on dried biscuits while meats
such as salami, ham and prosciutto blend well with cheese,
olives and pickled vegetables.
Wine
Because wine is usually a savory taste and blends well with
gourmet foods items, it is often included in gourmet gift
baskets. Again, there are thousands of types of wines from
different countries and the individual regions within them.
Wines differ as a result of the type of grape used, the
soil in which the grapes grow, the climate of the region,
the harvesting and preserving procedures, and the overall
winemaking process. The result is the incredible range of
wines available to most of us living in western countries.
Gourmet gift baskets are a gift for the senses, a gift to be
shared between two people who enjoy food. Or they can be an
opportunity to expand culinary horizons for people who haven't
paid a lot of attention to food in the past, or are content
with fast foods like burgers and fries, or meat, potatoes and
one green vegetable for dinner. Either way you're in for a
treat when you share a gourmet gift basket. An evening spent
indulging the senses in this way will certainly create a highly
romantic mood.
An Introduction To Gourmet Foods
If you haven't explored the gourmet food world before, it
can be a fun experience to share with your partner. You may
discover that you'll change your eating habits forever and
bring more pleasure into your life. Or you may decide it's not
for you but you had a great time experimenting. Here's a story
about some friends of ours who did exactly that.
When Terry met Alicia they were both university students.
Alicia came from a Mediterranean family where olives,
salamis and all sorts of interesting foods were part of the
family's diet. Terry came from an Anglo-Saxon family that
ate very traditional foods. Dinner was generally meat,
potatoes and a vegetable such as frozen beans or peas, with
apple pie for dessert. By Alicia's standards, the range of
foods he consumed was extremely narrow.
When the relationship became more serious, they moved in
together and began to share the weekly food shopping.
Alicia soon introduced Terry to a wider range of
vegetables, including broccoli, zucchini and other
squashes. He actually enjoyed trying these new foods, so
she taught him about the massive array of ingredients they
could use in salads.
Apart from shopping at the supermarket, Alicia had always
shopped at the local delicatessen for her treats. When
Terry accompanied her, he reluctantly tried olives for the
first time but immediately became a fan. He loved all of
them, green olives, black olives and pimento stuffed
olives, with every kind of dressing. Terry and Alicia also
had fun experimenting with cheeses, trying at least one new
cheese every week. They rated them on a scale of 1 to 10
and then decided which to include as a regular part of
their diet.
In Alicia's family wine was served with meals so they began
experimenting with different wines as well. Terry was
strictly a beer drinker until he developed a taste for it.
Sharing a gourmet snack with wine became one of the many
pleasurable experiences they shared. And Terry was forever
grateful to Alicia for introducing him to this new world of
gastronomic delights.
Recommended Gourmet Sites
Please click on the following affiliate links:
|
