In addition to the usual assortment (high-quality, peak-of-ripeness fruits; rare aged cheeses; or jams and jellies), gourmet bottled items -- such as chestnuts in brandy, various wines and assorted breads and crackers –- are often the dominating items in the basket.

Canned meats and fine smoked fish from around the world have made their way into many of today’s fruit baskets from numerous suppliers. Delicious spreads and exotic foreign foods quite often make their first appearances in holiday gift baskets.

Popular gourmet gift baskets differ from culture to culture, especially in the melting pot of America. There are so many different religious and sectarian groups living in America that a large number of extremely isolated manufacturers of gourmet fruit gift baskets have sprung up to cater to these diverse groups. You’ll find stores in ethnic neighborhoods, offering select items in baskets designed for the people in the area or even the tourists who come by to shop there. In one neighborhood you’ll find gourmet fruit gift baskets that contain a selection of caviars and wines from Russia, not available elsewhere. In other neighborhoods you can find items not available anywhere else -- at any price -- unless you purchase the gift basket they were packaged in.

Gourmet fruit gift baskets have become such a hot item that many ethnic items are launched in America through the fruit basket business. There are mail order companies and websites that cater to individual groups of people and offer them items they haven’t sampled since they left the old country. Through the Internet it is actually possible to contact small companies throughout the world that will ship gourmet fruit gift baskets, full of specific items from the very towns that immigrants used to live in before they made the trip to America. Imagine how it must feel to receive a basket of gourmet goodies from the small town in Germany, or Spain or Russia that you were born in. No other gift and no other form of gift giving are as personal and as satisfying as a gourmet fruit gift basket, chock-full of items that cater to the specifically individual tastes and background of the recipient.