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Olive oil.

Love to shop for herbs and other foods when abroad too. I have brought loads home. Most recently Thai peppers, lemongrass tea, kaffir lime leaves, dried mango & red chili paste from Thailand, green tea, wasabi paste, all sorts of rice crackers (some with nice prawns in them) and rice candies from Japan, lomo, chorizo, manchego, smoked paprika and saffron from Spain, pancetta, prosciutto, parmiggiano & limoncello from Italy. And I can go on for a while. My favorite shopping when abroad is visiting a supermarket ...

I always buy candy. Various candy bars, bags of gummy things, whatever. I bring them to work and let people have anything they want, provided I get a taste. :P The licorice animals from the Netherlands were the least successful - people used to come in and get one, telling me they had lost a bet.

Pralines from Southern Candymakers on Decatur. But really any candy or robust confections (like a macaroon or praline) because it is robust and travels well and remains a splurge and treat.

olives, from the Marché Jean Talon, in Montreal. We drive, so no worries about getting liquid through airport security.

I once bought 6 cans of boiled peanuts from a grocery store in South Carolina, and the airport security guard opened the bag & then told me that the roadside ones were better. "I know," I said, "but I can't bring them home with me."

i agree that spices and candies are the easiest food items to bring home, but not always the most fun. in the mid-nineties, when airport security was quite different, i smuggled home cans of sweetened condensed milk from russia. i know it sounds weird, but i fell in love with it while there and had to bring some home. a few years later a friend stayed with me after living in spain for a year and she smuggled in some of the tastiest sausage i have ever had.
now that security is so different i don't know if i would try smuggling some wonderful food items home. i guess i'll find out when i take my next trip abroad, whenever that may be!

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Dried whole squids from Vietnam.

tea--lots and lots of loose black tea from england.

When I visited Italy I wanted to bring EVERYTHING home. Instead, I picked delicious items that didn't weigh much.

I followed Marcella Hazan's suggestion to bring home dried porcini mushrooms (they weighed mere ounces). I also brought back small jars of mostarda di fruitta and suitcase friendly vacuum-packed packages of seasoned salt called Profumo del Chianti (from the world's most famous butcher, Dario Cecchini!).

I smuggled a bunch of dry sausage in my suitcase on the way back from Hungary. If they had searched my bag they would have confiscated it, but that's the risk you take... it was delicious :)

My friend's dad always used to smuggle in Parmagian cheese from Italy. It was the best!

If you've got enough room in your carry-on, a country ham