I've both made and received foodie gifts.
Baking aunt loved vanilla sugar, as it's lovely but impossible to get anywhere. She used it over a few months.
At family dinner, 2 aunts/uncles got different foodie hampers of chocs/cookies/mulled wine spices/raspberry vodka etc. 1 refused to open it there (as she knew what would happen) and left the cellophane intact. The other opened it to see what the bits and pieces were and the chocs and cookies were gobbled up even though it was after a huge meal (the hostess aunt had put chocs on the table but those were promptly ignored).
Sorry, that sounded smug, it wasn't meant to. The opening aunt though refused to allow the vodka be opened, as she remembered that from a previous year and wanted to savour that at home.
Jams and chutnies have always gone down well in my experience. As have dried herbs from my back garden (I tend to be selective about where these go as I don't get a lot spare). FIL wants another bottle of sloe gin (he's trying to find where I get them but I won't tell him as he ratted my damson spot to others so there's none there for me now, won't fall for that one again).
I've loved, and used, oven dried tomatoes in oil, flavoured oils (chilli, garlic, herb, lemon), sweets, jam, and baking.
I agree about baking may not get used up - I think that a jar of the ingredients weighed out for brownies/muffins etc so all I have to do is add wet stuff and chuck in the oven, would be great!