Imagine four football fields worth of food
displays teeming with free
samples, and only three days to take it all in. Such was my plight at the
end of June, during the National Association for the Specialty Food
Trade’s
Fancy Food Show in NYC. Okay, maybe it was not so much a plight as a
challenge. Regardless of the label for it, I gave my taste buds and feet
over to it for the full three days. (Lest any doubt my dedication to the
task, I offer as testament the unprecedented occurrence of my having no
interest left, at the end of the show, for a focused tasting-cum-audio
tour featuring all-you-can-nibble samples of 14 of the world’s premier
chocolates. Unbelievably, I left almost all untouched.) Along the way I
tasted some extraordinary new products, indulged in plenty of old
favorites and took in lots of street theater, both intended and otherwise.
Here are some of the highlights.
All The World’s a Stage
The Fancy Food Show is a paradise for food folk and people-watchers alike.
It’s a self-contained universe of extroverts and exhibitionists, in which
a simple “How’s it’s going?” can draw the response “Rice-a-rific!” I waved
hi to someone in a monkey suit, failed to make eye contact with someone
else dressed as an egg and side-stepped the all-silver (skin included)
human impersonator of the NASFT award statuette, standing motionless on a
pedestal. I declined a muffin from a bikini-clad woman, then was startled
to hear (okay, see) the same offer from the smiling Tarzan look alike next
to her, whose bronzed presence had somehow escaped my notice.
Despite with his obvious, uh, charms, my personal award for innovation in
serving samples goes to
Wiener Essig, a
70-year-old Viennese vinegar brewery that used elongated pipettes to
retrieve and then squirt its exquisite product line under visitors’
tongues. And exquisite it is, in terms both of taste (some varieties are
actually meant to be drunk in place of Schnapps) and cost (Dean and Deluca
offers a 8.45 oz. bottle of its
black current vinegar for a mere $40).
Celebrities of some sort are as common as the costumes. Chefs are
particularly abundant (although once a sales rep abandoned our interview
tocatch sexologist Dr. Ruth visiting a nearby display). Last year Emeril
Lagasse held court flanked by unsmiling men in dark suits and glasses,
while preeminent Cajun chef Paul Prudhomme unpretentiously manned his
Magic Seasonings Blends booth and Ming
Tsai dished out stand-up comedy and servings of Asian cabbage and shrimp
he’d cooked up to show off his
tea rubs. “If you
don’t like it, go see Bobby Flay!” he'd joked.
From what I’ve seen, no one has to be
prompted for crowds to form around
Bobby
Flay at the show. He is a natural magnet, whether for striking young
blondes or gangs of shall we say, mature women clamoring to have their
photo taken with him en masse. When I first dropped by his booth this
year, he was in front of the demonstration cooktop rather than behind
(rats!) and engrossed in conversation with several striking young blondes.
My timing was right for hot-off-the-burner dishes straight from the hands
of other star chefs, though, most notably Tom Douglas of Seattle (whose
fresh-ground
Rubs With Love became staples of my kitchen on impact) and Rick Bayless
(whose Frontera Grill is a
must-visit in Chicago).
This Year’s Models
Every year has a noticeable theme in new products. Two years ago saw an
explosion in celebrity chef lines. Last year everyone and his dog was
going organic. (No mistake in that phrase: I saw -- but did not taste --
organic dog biscuits, from the
Big Bark Bakery in Dallas.) This year, the trends that grabbed my
attention were peanut butter for adults, pita snack foods and healthful
drinks.
The trend in peanut butter is enhancing it with all kinds of flavors that
speak to a decidedly adult palate. One company voices its opinion on the
matter with its choice of name.
Peanut
Better transforms organic peanuts into four sweet flavors (including a
coarsely ground deep chocolate and a peanut praline with a citrusy
aftertaste) and four savory, sophisticated ones. The second category is
laced with garlic or peppers and suitable for use as mustards or in
appetizers or cooking.
Peanut Butter
&
Co., the merchandising arm of a Greenwich Village restaurant that
specializes in peanut butter sandwiches, is focusing instead on appealing
to overgrown kids. Though it does have one cayenne-spiked variety, the
bulk
of its line is spreadable decadence. Cinnamon and Raisin Swirl is the big
seller, while White Chocolate Wonderful and Dark Chocolate Dreams are
particularly aptly named.
The splashiest pita pusher was
Regenie's Crunchy Pitas, which stopped
traffic with a booth full of harem girls handing out tastes. The chips are
baked and fried, and the sweetened flavors (such as cinnamon
maple sugar) work as well as the savory (such as garlic parmesan). Though
not technically made from pita, flour-based
Lotus Chips are crisp, crunchy
triangles that come close in consistency and texture. My favorite of its
flavors was the original, sesame, which is sweet and salty with an
afterkick. The true wonder in this category, though, were
PitaSnax. They’re baked
puff pillows of surprisingly thin dough, which provides the satisfying
crunch that’s part of a carbohydrate craving. The ranch and cheese flavors
in particular hold the promise of addiction.
If you’re hankering for alternatives to soft drinks, keep a lookout in
Whole Foods Market, Trader Joes and other upper-end grocers. The sheer
number of soda alternatives at this year’s show signals that they’re about
to flood the market.
Switch Soda claims to be the only
carbonated juice drink that’s 100% juice (it’s sweetened by white, grape
or
apple juice instead of corn syrup). I found it gentle and refreshing.
Refreshing is also the key characteristic of
GuS Grown-Up Soda, a distinctly less
sweet
answer to soft drinks. All natural, it pairs tart fruit extracts (ginger
ale, Meyer lemon, star ruby grapefruit or Valencia orange) with sparkling
water and high fructose corn syrup.
Microbrewed Steap Soda took popular
mainstream flavors and reengineered them with all-organic ingredients and
green tea (one full cup per bottle). And it works. The orange and the
raspberry are both pleasant, while the root beer is a knock-out, with a
yummy creamy finish that knocks out any awareness of attendant nutritional
virtues.
If you are susceptible to high concept, Generation-the-latest graphics,
the
packaging alone will stir your interest in
SmoothieSmile, a luscious UK-made
product containing only crushed fruit (pineapple & coconut, mango &
orange, blueberry & raspberry), without preservatives or added sugar. The
single-serve variation, called Smoothiepacks, would be handy to tuck into
a briefcase or flight bag.
I’ll admit that an eye-rolling “Oh, please” was my first reaction to
bottles of glacéau’s designer water
chugging along an oval conveyer belt. After sampling most of the line (and
downing two full bottles), I’ve dropped the look but kept the phrase. Each
variety of vitaminwater offers enough of a mild
fruit flavor to be interesting, and each is paired with herbs, vitamins or
minerals for a specific effect. A number are particularly poised as
antidotes to job stress, such as endurance (peach, Vitamin E and
astragalus), stress-B (lemon-lime, Vitamin B and St. John’s wort), energy
(tropical citrus, Vitamin C and ginseng) and power-C (dragonfruit, which
tastes like mixed berries, Vitamin C and taurine). All are vapor-distilled
and contain electrolytes, without any of the additives that come with
sports drinks. Glacéau sells the same base, minus the flavorings, herbs
and vitamins, under the name smartwater.
In the next installment of After Hours, I’ll return to the Fancy Food Show
to pass on a few of my favorite things.
ã Kathy Biehl 2003