A grocery basket as a gift: how to assemble and present it in an original way?

Is it appropriate to give food, is it not offensive for the person to whom the gift is intended - these questions cannot be answered unequivocally. After all, if, for example, the parent committee of the class decides to give a grocery basket to the teacher, then this is a bad option. But if you decide to please your close relatives and friends with delicacies, this can be a really good gift.

Giving money is bad form, but despite such a strict sentence, envelopes and postcards with banknotes remain the leader among gifts, and this trend is unlikely to be threatened. You need to understand that the rules exist to break them. And if it is customary in your environment to give money, if there is some agreement on the appropriateness of such gifts, even if there is a notional amount, this is normal.

With food, everything is almost the same. Someone will be offended by a stick of sausage (even the most expensive one) presented on the occasion of the holiday, and someone will be happy with a delicious present. A question of relevance... When the same parents buy a package of groceries (caviar, red fish, sausage, chocolate, alcohol) for the teacher, it may offend him. It looks from the outside as if parents are hinting at low teacher salaries, and the package with groceries has some kind of condescending, humiliating character.

But if you decide, for example, on March 8 to congratulate grandmothers with a basket of groceries, this may please them. Often grandmothers (and other age-related relatives), when asked what to give, just brush it off - they say, we don't need anything anymore. But products will not be overkill.

There remains only the final touch, and a very important one: to present a delicious gift correctly. A gastronomic basket with all its appearance should increase the appetite. If you give it to a woman, she will pay attention to aesthetics first of all. Yes, and men love externally convincing gifts. The basket itself (if you have chosen such a package) must be strong, solid and comfortable. Its handle can be tied with a ribbon, or you can attach a postcard with good wishes to the handle.

The fun begins - collecting the basket. The first thing that comes to mind is sweets. Of course, you can't do without them, but let's go through all the main points.

First of all, proceed from the tastes and preferences of the person whom you decided to congratulate. Many strive to buy a newfangled dessert, but it can leave indifferent a person who has already formed tastes, and he is philosophical about all the peeps of fashion. Therefore, if you know that your loved one loves sweets with truffle filling, look for just such.

If you have a collection basket, and not a mono set (for example, only tea or only cheese), it is impossible to imagine a complete composition without drinks. Tea is available in the kitchen of almost every family. If you are not sure about your preferences, buy a tea assortment. It is often packed in beautiful boxes.

But if this is only tea, then take an expensive, leafy one, by weight. Choose neutral flavors: classic black or selected green. A jar of honey can also be attached to a basket of tea, it literally begs to be coupled.

Much depends on your finances. There are budget but delicious options.

For example, people are often ready to give up expensive Mediterranean cheeses in favor of a Belarusian product). Again, the cheese itself is produced in the form of attractive, mouth-watering heads, sausages, flagella.

Usually smoked meats and jerky meat get here. Keep track of the expiration date. If you are not sure about the tastes of the person to whom you are making the basket, you can replace the meat part with sausage. This is a more neutral option.

Do not take too peppery, spicy sausages - stop at something universal. These can be products that resemble grandmother's village sausages. It's easier to guess with sausage than with meat.

Having vegetables from your garden in your food basket is great. Such a contribution will be appreciated by a loved one. But if this is not possible, work carefully in the vegetable department.

With fruit, you also need to try - ripe apples showing off glossy barrels, traditional oranges, tangerines (in winter) are appropriate. If you want something a little more exotic, take pomelo and mango, they rarely disappoint those who have not tried them before. Looks great in a gift basket grapes. Do not forget to grab kiwi: in terms of the amount of valuable vitamin C, it is ahead of even lemon. By the way, the lemon in the fruit basket is also not superfluous.

The berry part is especially good in the season when the berries are local, fresh and beautiful. But if it's winter outside and it's bad with berries, you don't need to take expensive strawberries (perhaps not quite tasty). It is better to experiment with dried fruits: they are many times healthier in winter. And they look pretty if you pack them in small plastic bags and tie them with a ribbon. There are also a couple of small bags of nuts. But peanuts should not be taken, despite their cheapness: they have less benefits than other nuts, and, moreover, they are a very allergenic product.

In this part of the basket there is a place for things that do not always clearly fall into one category or another. For example, red caviar - what is a congratulatory food set without it? Or canned tuna, a popular salad base, also deserves a spot in the holiday basket.

Create "edible" baskets according to your taste. Perhaps it is really better for grandmother or mother to take a national team, where there is a little bit of everything.... But if, for example, you are bringing someone a gift from a trip (colleagues, for example), you can bring a small mono basket: a cheese basket, a tea basket, a basket of coffee.

Most often, grocery baskets are played thematically. For example, chocolate is decorated with chocolate satin ribbons to match, and coffee is complemented by coffee treats - cookies, sweets, jam. If you are making an Italian-style basket (pasta, sauces, olive oil), you can throw in a small art album with beautiful reproductions of Venetians. Or the biography of Leonardo da Vinci would be appropriate in such a basket. Maybe Sophia Loren or Bernardo Bertolucci.

A fish basket with delicious seafood can be a bit of a surprise. For example, a friendly comic invitation to go fishing is not an endless number of fishing trips with a friend.

The design depends on your imagination, as well as on the closeness of the relationship with the one to whom you are presenting the gift. Also important is the holiday about which such "offerings" are made. If you decided to present a grocery basket for the New Year, then there are a lot of options - from coquettishly looking out spruce twigs, powdered with artificial snow, to small souvenirs, Christmas tree decorations, as if accidentally found themselves among the grocery splendor.

The basket, which is presented on March 8, just wants to be supplemented with mimosa sprigs. And on your birthday, you can tie a bunch of colorful balloons to the handle of the basket. Don't forget to sign the postcard. By the way, in a basket with seafood, you can put a beautiful bottle with a cork, inside which there will be a small note. These are words of congratulations that can be stylized to resemble the message of a cheerful pirate.

I would like not only to hand over a gift from hand to hand, but to do it creatively. If the basket is beautifully designed, then unnecessary words are not required. But if you feel that something needs to be said, be succinct and eloquent.

Examples of accompanying speech:

• On such a festive day, I would like to wish you a delicate, excellent taste for life! Appreciate what we call the little things in life - enjoy the coffee aroma, the fresh baked goods on Saturday morning, the fun joke and the delicious compliment. And to train your "muscles of taste", we give you this "edible" basket!
• How to please a gourmet? Probably good products from which he can create a culinary masterpiece. Without further ado, I want to give you this basket - try, enjoy, compose new recipes and invite us to visit!
• We know firsthand about your culinary talents. And so that you hone your style, we decided to help you a little: please accept this “tasty” basket. Let her help you take your culinary skills to the next level.
• Only those who do not know what kind of work is behind it and who do not know what a timely and properly served lunch can inspire a person does not appreciate a delicious dinner. Our gift is just a small compliment to your culinary talents, which we would like to continue to appreciate!

Figuratively speaking, you can "pepper the main course" with florid compliments, and the gift will be accepted with pleasure. If everything is aesthetically pleasing, if the products are not taken on the basis of the "cheapest" principle, if you really wanted to please your loved one and please him, the grocery basket will definitely not be a pass-through gift.

Watch a video on the topic.