Can food be considered a collectable?

I am incapable of walking past interesting foodstuffs and by “interesting” I mean pretty much anything that I think I might ever use at some point in my life.  Like most women I have my fair share of shoes and handbags and I do come across both that suddenly become must haves.  But where my eyes really glaze over is gourmet food stores.  While I will admit that this does pose certain issues with respect to storage, it is a relatively harmless addiction and one that I plan to continue to indulge.

My justifications, for want of a better word, are as follows.  Firstly I find that having interesting things in my cupboard seriously inspires my creativity.  Often it is the combination of ingredients in spice rubs or in anti pasti type dishes that end up completely unrecognisable as a simple or sensational recipe.  Or it could be that a radical combination of flavours changes my thinking so that I break several culinary rules to come up with something wonderful.  Secondly, when entertaining, I invariably want to use something that I have seen in my shopping travels, but either cannot remember where I saw it, or am unable to get there if I can.  This can be frustrating for me, and frightening for my husband, as it often causes me to channel my inner fish wife.  Finally and most importantly, I love having a bulging pantry. I adore being able to open the doors and find all manner of weird and wonderful ingredients that I can play with.  I love having food packaged in a language I don’t understand and I love being able to make most things without having to leave my house for supplies.  As addictions go, mine is harmless and one that I would encourage others to embrace.  Buying food out of your comfort zone is great fun and shopping in exotic food stores can be like cheap travel.  The only down side is the storage issue, but then that is why I am pushing for a bigger kitchen.

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