Hunting and Gathering

My love of food has often been surpassed by my lack of money. Good food can be costly. Not always, as buying from the bulk section of the local natural foods store usually saves a few pennies, but at times, items such as kefir lime leaves, nutritional yeast, ume plum vinegar, nori, and the like have been far beyond my price range.

In the winter of 2006 for instance, I fell in love with the Thai soup Tom Ghak Gai. Not that I minded paying $7 for a serving at my local restaurant, but when I find a new dish that illicits my affection I want to learn how to master the recipe. And so I scoured "the internets" looking for recipes that closely resembled the soup made at the very particular restaurant I frequented. I knew for a fact that the basics of the soup included: coconut milk, vegetable stock (I'm sure the soup made in the restaurant had chicken stock in it), lemongrass, cilantro, ginger, chilis, straw mushrooms and fried tofu. Some recipes didn't include the mushrooms, others didn't include the chili. Some recipes called for tamarind paste, others called for galangal (a type of thai ginger). But the one incredient that would make or break Tom Ghak Gai was kefir limes leaves. Now, at the time I was working at a natural foods store, albiet a small store but still one where I could special order exotic ingredients. The big "but" was that I couldn't order Kefir lime leaves, they just weren't available. I hunted online, Amazon Gourmet Foods offered 10 kefir lime leaves, delivered within 24hours, fresh, for about $30. I wanted the kefir lime leaves, I wanted them bad, but not that bad. I forewent the lime leaves and used lime juice and rind instead, the soup turned out pretty good.
The other foodstuff I hunted for quite some time was Marmite. I had read about it, and instantly my interest was piqued. What was this sticky black goo? As soon as I read that "some Brits are addicted to the stuff" I wanted to taste it. Absolutely no stores in my town sold Marmite, and once again, online I found that I could purchase a tiny imported bottle, but it would cost $15. So I gave up, thinking I would never get to taste the British staple. Until Thanksgiving of this year when I traveled to a town with a "World Marketplace" and was able to get a 4oz bottle for about $6. It tasted much like I thought it would, a bit like beef broth and soy sauce.
Other foods have eluded me. I have still not tried marzipan. Caviar will probably never touch my taste buds. My curiosity regarding truffles (the fungus) continues, while a flimsy wallet keeps me from these delicacies. I continue to read about and seek out new foods almost continuously. I scourge through produce isles. A trip to a new grocery store always presents new opportunities. I'm channeling a primal spirit, hunting through bulk bins and peeling back the husks of corn to get a good look at the ripe kernels. An ancient part of my psyche persists to gather ingredients, to glean from the harvest in a very modern way. I click the mouse on gourmet and import websites, surfing through pages of clearance spices. No need for travel or braving bad weather anymore. It's easier than ever to be a gourmet.