The Best Ways to Travel Home With Food Souvenirs
One of my favorite parts of traveling is the food. Exploring the cuisine of another region is almost always exciting, and you have an excuse to do so several times a day during your trip. The bummer is when you have to get on a plane and leave it all behind. But this year I’ve gained new insight into how to minimize the end-of-holiday blues by bringing home some of my favorite dishes from abroad.
I was deeply shocked by how the movie theaters treated me when they caught me smuggling into Taco Bell because, oddly enough, the TSA doesn’t really care if you bring food on the plane. (Customs is another story, but I’ll let you do with it as you like.) As long as you can comply with the liquidity restrictions, you won’t have too much trouble with them. (You can visit the TSA website for interesting details, like how they’ll happily inspect live lobsters.) So the question isn’t whether you can , but how you can do it without spoiling or breaking it.
Freeze butter and cheese
I went to Paris this year and despite the abundance of incredible food, the French butter is amazing. While I was intent on cramming as much oil into my mouth as possible over the course of five days, a friend I was traveling with happened to mention that he had vacuum sealed it in plastic and frozen it. It was a double moment.
While vacuum sealing helps control food flavors, the freezing process is critical. Freezing keeps foods firm and durable and delays the need for refrigeration, thereby buying time before spoilage occurs. I froze four blocks of butter and when I unpacked them they were still cold. It’s only about 13 hours from a European freezer to a Brooklyn refrigerator in late May. (This is probably the maximum travel time that most frozen foods will withstand, so skip to the next section if your travels will keep you on the plane longer.)
You can freeze many of your favorite food souvenirs to give them a fighting chance in your luggage. Anything you would normally freeze will work: butter, hard cheeses, cold cuts, cold cuts, bread, biscuits, biscuits or nut butters. Large or hard items will stay cold longer compared to bread with air pockets or smaller cookies. If you know you’ll be collecting food souvenirs on your trip, bringing a small insulated bag will help keep your food cooler longer. While you can use ice or gel packs, I don’t recommend it. During TSA screening they must be completely frozen, which cannot be relied upon and adds weight.
Although La Grande Epicerie vacuum sealed my batch of butter in a plastic bag, you don’t need to take a vacuum sealer with you on vacation. Perhaps you could argue that the suction plastic maintains the shape of the item, but I don’t think it does anything in that regard. Plastic really just prevents any major spills, melts, or odors from getting into your luggage. You can simply squeeze the air out of ziplock bags, or use one of these no-vacuum compression travel bags .
To be clear, traveling with food, even in the car, is a bit of a gamble if you can’t control the temperature. The USDA states that perishable foods can only be left in the danger zone (40 to 140°F) for up to two hours. If you unpack a frozen product once and it feels like it has reached room temperature, you can discard it. However, my family always kept butter on the kitchen counter. Frozen foods stay warm longer, but always be smart and use your nose.
Swaddling glass
If perishable foods aren’t an option for your travels, you can still bring home the taste of your travels with jarred foods. Dry goods are easy to pack if the packaging is plastic, but glass packaging may be more difficult. If you’re bringing back 10 jars of Italian peperoncino powder or three small bottles of limoncello from Amalfi, be sure to fill them up. Luckily, your luggage is almost full of padding.
Unlike the picture, your luggage shouldn’t look like there’s no food in it. All this should be swaddled. Place any liquid favors such as liqueurs, sauces, jams, oils or vinegars in small resealable plastic bags, then wrap them in clothes you don’t particularly like. I usually put the jars in my socks, and roll the bottles into several shorts or pajamas. The fabric will prevent aggressive collisions, but in the rare event of a breakdown, at least you’ll still be ready to take off that One Direction T-shirt.
Finally, place especially fragile soft cans or bottles in your packed shoes or sneakers. This shoe fort will protect your precious food as soon as you close the lid of your carry-on and, as a bonus, will keep your shoes in shape. I once brought home a six-piece set of Venetian wine glasses in my checked luggage, and they came back to me in pristine condition.