When it comes to mail-order snacks and gourmet appetizers, we found the best options throughout the West.
Considering the prevalence of mail-order and take-out dining options these days, we couldn’t help but consider what options might exists for gourmet appetizers and snacks. After canvassing friends and fellow staffers, we sampled as many deliverable options from the West as we could. And whether it’s candied pecans or Indigenous maple syrup, the West has plenty to offer.
SweetGrass Trading Company
It could be called Indigenous Bounty, but SweetGrass Trading Company has a more poetic ring. A subsidiary of the Ho-Chunk Trading Group of the Winnebago Tribe of Nebraska, SweetGrass curates a selection of traditional Native American food products and handcrafted items from across Indian Country on its wide-ranging website.
In the department of authentic Native American food and beverage, you’ll find products like Tanka bars, from the Oglala Lakota on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota, and based on traditional wasna and pemmican. The bars evoke a wellness philosophy in both name (“Be Tanka” means “to live life powerfully”) and in ingredients, which combine high-protein prairie-fed buffalo and tart-sweet cranberries, and come in Slow Smoked Original, Apple Orange Peel, and Spicy Pepper.
You’ll also find everything from wild rice and wild rice pancake mix, Passamaquoddy Maple Amber Maple Syrup, and Red Lake Nation Wild Chokecherry Syrup, to smoked wild salmon chowder, Yaupon Brothers American Tea (sustainably harvested in the pristine forests on the Florida East Coast), and gift boxes for all of us who can’t begin to make up our minds. It’s all the more satisfying when you know that a portion of the proceeds goes to a Ho-Chunk Native Scholarship Program. sweetgrasstradingco.com
Go Nuts
Pistachios and almonds grown on a family farm in Bakersfield, California, made gourmet (savory flavors like habanero, smoked Gouda, and BBQ, and sweet ones covered in dark chocolate, milk chocolate, white chocolate matcha, or yogurt) then given a healthy dose of probiotics — you get why you really need these in your snack stash, right? pronutz.com
Don’t Order Just One
Bourque’s Super Store in Port Barre, Louisiana, is a family business known far and wide for its impressive selection of breads, meats, seafood, seasonings, and other snacks. But its most popular item by a landslide is its jalapeño sausage and cheese bread. Bourque’s moves up to 250 loaves a day, according to its site. bourquespecialties.com
Decadent Delicacies
Your guests will be excited and surprised when you pull out the caviar. It works every time, especially if you have a sampling from one of the premier providers in the world, San Francisco’s The Caviar Co. Among many choices on its site, there’s a sampler offered that includes three different 1-ounce cans (your choice), gourmet French cocktail blini, Bellwether Farms crème fraîche, and three mother of pearl caviar spoons. thecaviarco.com
Handful of Each, Please
Rattlesnake Ranch Pecan Company calls it a “staple holiday gift,” and after tasting what’s in the beautiful tin it comes with, we’re inclined to agree. The seven-way candied pecan sampler has good helpings of milk chocolate, Southern praline, chocolate toffee, dark chocolate, creamy white, toasted cinnamon, and honey toasted pecans. We had to call a loved one to take it away from us. rattlesnakeranchpecans.com
From the October 2021 issue
Photography: (All images) courtesy vendors
