Bringing home the bacon

I mean the prosciutto, tins, jars and—

Being a bit ill has given me time to unpack and clean and settle in. Would I have preferred to be able to run around and catch up with everyone right away? Of course. And I sort of did for a couple of days on my immediate return, before it all caught up with me.

Anyway, all this at-home time has meant that I perhaps unpacked in a more organized way than usual, not stretching it out over… a long time. And it made visually clear something that, while not really a surprise, was still interesting to see laid out in such detail in front of me: when I travel, I mostly bring back just two things, and that’s books and food. By far. It’s not even close.

So there were a lot of books—but that’s par for the course whenever I come back from virtually anywhere. What surprised me was how many jars and tins I’d accumulated along the way. There were only two bottles of booze; this time, it’s mostly been food.

Bringing food as a gift or taking something special to eat back home with you is not anything new, and I’ve have been doing it myself for years. Back then, though, it tended to be very tiny, very special things that I might stash away nearly till their expiration date, or beyond—always on the wait for a special, no, perfect, occasion.

Somewhere along the line I got tired of that. And started dipping in. It’s not much, really—a spoon of jam, really good, really fresh, but if it makes you smile and remember the little place you bought it from everytime you eat it, it’s very much something. Food has that unique quality of acting as an emotional time machine.

Raspberry and rhubarb were the jams I brought back from this trip, along with two jars of mustard—one so strong that the other night just a smear of it it turned a simple egg sandwich into something truly transcendent. That’s why condiments are such a good bring-home treat: a little goes a long way and that jar is going to be making me smile for a while.

I’ve got small cans of pâté, too, and a cute roll of proscuiutto crudo of unknown specific provenance since I threw away the bulkier outer packaging somewhere along the line. It is waiting—if not for a special occasion than at least for some good bread. Circumstances meant that this time no cheese made the journey back with me.

But there are tins of fish and other seafood goodies, though these are slightly depleted. However, I am here to tell you that if you should ever happen to find yourself on a train that is sent back to its point of origin due to landslides on the tracks ahead, and you should be so lucky that the train company puts you up in a nice hotel but only once it’s too late to buy any food from anywhere in the vicinity (and there’s no room service)? Breadless pâté and jam a dinner do not make, but a few tins of fish? They were perfect: true story.

Another tin, this one of loose-leaf Earl Grey tea, snagged at the airport at the last minute. A small jar of honey, one of pickled peppers; both gifts. And two of the jars I’ve brought home are artichoke-or-artichoke-based; make of that what you will.

By now you might have noticed that these are… quite a few jars. The tins do fine in transit, with only the occasional dent; I’ll get to those first. Glass jars, on the other hand, need a bit of extra tlc. For me that means paper—bubble wrap should I encounter any—and clothes. If I can get ahold of some plastic bags—ziplocs are the gold standard here—the jars go in those, first. This isn’t always possible, of course, so I give bag precedence to things with a high mess potential, say oil-marinated-artichokes, just in case. This time, and despite the fact that at one point I appeared to have more containers than clothing to use as padding, everything has made it home in one piece.

Sometimes what you bring back can be its own kind of adventure; years ago, I had a layover in Hong Kong. While exploring the city, I came across a shop that specialized in lap cheong or Chinese sausage. It was one of those obsessive shops that carry only one product, in every variety imaginable. I couldn’t not take some home. And I did. Where it sat in my fridge for… more months than I’d care to admit. (But don’t worry! I read on the internet somewhere that it lasts indefinitely… ). I can’t tell you how ridiculously satisfying it felt when I finally did some research and figured out how to use it. (Also just writing this has taken me down a memory rabbit hole of that trip; I’d gone looking for a place I’d seen on a Bourdain travel show—and if it wasn’t this one, it was a place a lot like it. In my memories, I’m walking down the road after a delicious meal and saw the shop with sausages hanging everywhere, and stepped inside…Google cannot confirm or deny.)

All these food items bring me so much more happiness than trinkets—and I get to enjoy it spread out out over weeks and months. Sure, there are a few new fridge magnets on display, and an extra shot glass or two has snuck into the collection, but overall when it comes to keepsakes, I’d rather be eating than dusting.