As long as we’re on the joint topics of abundance and exotica, let’s take a slight detour through the Common and over the Pike to the 88 Supermarket (50 Herald Street, 617-423-1688), the exception to the rule of our big-store boycott. If you’ve never had occasion to come here before, let the spirit of discovery be your pretext and your guide — and prepare to be exhilarated. Today’s destination is the seafood counter, the likes of which you’ve never seen nor will see in the antiseptic environs of the average American market. Here are piles and piles of at least 20 different and often unfamiliar kinds of whole fish, as well as tanks full of live ones; few cost more than $2 a pound. There are lobsters and crabs aplenty, squirming and snapping — so would you, if you were going for $2 to $6 per pound. Here, too, a row of galvanized buckets holds tiny snails, conch meat, enormous oysters, and a slew of clams — including the gorgeously sleek razor clam ($2.75/lb.). There’s also a huge spectrum of frozen and dried seafood products, from salted jellyfish and sea cucumber to cuttlefish and abalone, which delivers its own delightful series of culture shocks. The fun is to dwell in culinary possibility — dried-oyster stuffing, perhaps? Milkfish soup? Squid fritters?

The Haymarket Bargain Basement (96 Blackstone Street, 617-367-0099) is another find, though much smaller, tucked away among the butcher shops just behind Faneuil Hall. What you won’t encounter as you descend the stairs into this cubbyhole of a store, with its bare walls, floors, and bulbs, is a boundless selection of curios. What you will discover is a small array of sparkling-fresh whole fish laid out with dignity and care. The daily catch usually includes catfish, sea bass, white perch, tilapia, and five or six others (all under $7/lb.); on some weekends, proprietor Khalid Tarapia offers swordfish, halibut, and haddock as well. Throughout the store, baskets full of little bags of dried herbs and spices add a homey touch. On a shelf lined with Middle Eastern condiments, you’ll find a bottle of sirop de jallab or date-and-rose-water syrup that will — if you’re a self-styled condiment connoisseur like me — make your day. Such surprises and small treasures are precisely what this kind of shopping trip is all about.

Of course, nearly any Italian could tell you as much; the North End is built upon the fact that browsing is in the Mediterranean blood. Our next stop, then, is Maria’s Pastry Shop (46 Cross Street, 617-523-1196), a tiny little bakery with an easygoing, unaffected air and a straightforward repertoire of traditional, home-style Italian sweets. From everyday staples like torrone and biscotti to such holiday fare as ricotta pie, Christmas-tree-shaped marzipan candies, and panettone, Maria Merola and her sister Enza manage to make it all. In the wall cases, baba — small, toque-shaped brioches — lay drenched in rum; fried-dough crespelle glisten in a honey glaze sprinkled with mixed nuts; and cookies abound — including pastel-hued butter cookies topped with rainbow sprinkles; pretzel-esque zuccherati; and iced amaretti, reminiscent of Mexican wedding cookies, but perfumed with anise (only $3 per generous bagful). Best of all, the store is off Hanover Street, so the cannoli-hungry hordes stampede right past it.

In contrast to Maria’s, the Wine Bottega (341 Hanover Street, 617-227-6607) focuses less on preserving the past and more on ushering in the future. The quirky find, the little-known gem, the cult fave are chef de cave Peter J. Nelson’s stock-in-trade. Take sparkling reds: if they’re not doomed to obscurity for defying the usual categorizations, it will be because of advocates like Nelson, who can point you toward one or two guaranteed cocktail-hour show-stealers. He’s also willing to take chances on wines from unexpected regions like Abruzzi and Puglia, or on unsung grapes like the Sicilian nero d’avola. But if you insist on something traditional for the holidays, so be it — he’ll direct you all the way to the back for a bottle of Lurgashall mead ($18), the fermented-honey concoction beloved by those barrels of laughs, the Vikings.

And speaking of high spirits, nearby Cirace’s (173 North Street, 617-227-3193) has a few that’ll knock the v right out of "reveling." Grappas galore grace several shelves. Though far from cheap, a little grappa goes a long way, and besides, the chic bottles are keepers (Marolo’s $60 chamomile grappa is one silky-smooth example). For those with a sweet tooth, the back room’s where they stash the dessert wines, from Vin Santos and moscatos to fragolino, or strawberry wine, and the frothy Sicilian zibibbo (say it with me).

The last two stops on our itinerary are located in the South End. Granted, it’s a bit of a trek for this walking tour, but after all that alcohol, we could use it. Across the way from pastry wunderkind Joanne Chang’s justly popular Flour, the brand-new Epicurean Meat Market (1704 Washington Street, 617-247-2117) presents itself as the minimalist answer to chaotic Savenor’s. Its gleaming white space is simply dotted with merchandise — a shelf of scattered condiments here, a galvanized tub of onions there — to keep the focus squarely on the central meat counter. Quality over quantity is clearly the philosophy behind the highly selective display of ruby-red cuts of steak — tenderloin, porterhouse, rib-eye, cowboy, and flank — which are themselves flanked by veal, pork, and lamb chops, fresh whole chickens, loaves of p‰tˇ, and gourmet sausages, such as garlic-and-cheddar and basil-and-parmesan, straight from the Smokehouse in Roxbury. Proprietors Michele Jacaruso and Nicole Christo also create daily-special marinades (like blood-orange-and-honey chicken breasts, at $5.99 per pound, and black-bean-garlic flank steaks at $7.99). And they’ve recently begun to offer fish — swordfish and tuna, for instance, cut into steaks as big and fat and juicy as any piece of beef — although they’re simultaneously scaling back the deli-meat section ("you can get that anywhere," Jacaruso points out), so be sure to stock up on their mouthwatering salami; it’ll be your antipasto platter’s tangy crown jewel.

We’re almost home. But since no tour of Boston-area food shops can ignore Formaggio Kitchen, we’d best pop into the South End FK (268 Shawmut Avenue, 617-350-6996). Though it’s much smaller than the Cambridge store, it manages at any given time to showcase 80 to 100 cheeses from around the world, as well as a goodly array of the artisanal oils, vinegars, honeys, candies, and sauces that owners Ihsan and Valerie Gurdal capture like rare butterflies on their excursions to Europe. Sometimes the number of blue-veined cheeses seems higher than you can count, and the shapes of the goat cheeses can challenge your knowledge of geometry. But an unusually passionate staff is always there to offer advice and, better yet, samples. Say "conversation piece," and they may hand you a sliver of Persillˇ de Tignes, a rare farmhouse goat cheese with a meaty depth of flavor ($17.99/lb.), or point you toward the chili-and-rosemary-coated Brin d’Amour, a sheep’s-milk round from Corsica ($25/lb.). Say "piquant," and you’ll be presented with, say, a taster of Burgundian Epoisses washed in marc ($13.95/lb.), or if you say "delicate," with a surprisingly mild and milky smidgen of Gorgonzola Dolce ($12.95/lb.). To summon Calvino’s sage hero yet again: "This shop is a museum: Mr. Palomar, visiting it, feels, as he does in the Louvre, behind every displayed object the presence of the civilization that has given it form and takes form from it." As long as such shops exist, there’s still hope for the McFuture.

Ruth Tobias can be reached at ruthiet@bu.edu