Entries associated with the tag "Fancy Food Show":

Recently I've been salting my reserve of existential dread by reading Paul Roberts' forthcoming The End of Food, a dense, cheerless forecast about the fragility of the global food supply (it's spring!). So yesterday I felt particularly gloomy wandering around this year's Fancy Food Show at McCormick Place. With news reports of Costco rice rationing, Japanese butter shortages, and Haitian food riots echoing through my head, it's hard to get behind the hordes of showgoers lining up for samples of pate and Epoisses, buffalo sausage, single origin chocolate, and water whose chief marketing attribute seems to be the overdesigned plastic art deco style bottle it's poured into.  

There are probably a number of reason this year's trade show--titled the Global Food & Style Expo, which encompasses FFF, the All Things Organic Show and the U.S. Food Export Showcase--seemed more subdued and contracted than last year's, and not all of them have to do with my crappy mood. The U.S. imports end of the floor was forlorn and unattended, and the Fancy Food Show slightly less so. But on the other hand the organic component was booming: by my rough guess it was nearly the same size of the other two shows combined. It's not news that organics have become big business, but the difference between this and last year seemed startling. The New York Times even had a tout there selling subscriptions. Of course that meant a larger share of silliness on display, from organic frozen breaded shrimp, yogurt for dogs, many varieties of unidentifiable bark bars advertised not so much for what they're made from but for what they're not, and all sorts of highly processed foods that are permitted to wear the attractive label of "organic." The absurdity of a lot of this stuff was put sharply into focus at the display for a French Canadian spice company that thought the best way to market its blends was to employ a couple of robotic arms to sprinkle the stuff over uncooked pasta and a platter of weathered-looking salmon (pictured).

There is just too much to see, too much to nosh at the Food Marketing Institute's "Power of Five" show at McCormick Place, a food industry confab broken into five segments: a produce packing and distribution show, a marketing aspect, a section on U.S food exports, and of most interest to me the Fancy Food Show and the Organic Trade Association's All Things Organic expo.

Walking around the show sampling all manner of bonbons, crackers, snacks, oils, coffees, wines, create-your-own-cookie kits, sauces, and jellies produces the sort of addled sensory dislocation associated with the early stages of a lysergic tweak. For example, the industry types piled up to sample the Serrano at the table run by Ravenswood Spanish Food importer Solex, or the pate de foie de porc et gras smeared on water crackers by Elston Avenue's European Imports Ltd., contrasted weirdly with the desolation at the loneliest of booths--the one offering the salted hog casings of Jiangsu, China.

By the end of the day I had eaten so much cheese (big ups to the Crater Lake Blue from Oregon's Rogue Creamery) I had to rush right home and eat a head of cabbage. But despite the profusion and confusion I managed to spot a couple unique and interesting things, mostly in the organic show hidden among the doggy treats, perfume, baby food, and hemp clothes. 

The Milwaukee-based World Artisan Guild is the sole U.S. importer of Moroccan Argan oil. This rare, nutty, and extremely expensive elixir is produced solely in a tiny region of southwest Morocco by Berber women. It makes its first U.S. appearance this month. World Artisan's Stefan Hauke was a passionate salesman. I later saw him working the server at the makeshift Trotter's To Go Cafe, but with little luck he said.

Directly across the aisle from the Argan booth was another rarity. One of the only Wasabi farms in the U.S., South Carolina's Real Wasabi, was hawking its line of sauces and dressings, but also had a pile of the bright green larval-looking rhizomes available to sniff, and some of the grated stuff to sample. If you've never had real wasabi--not the ubiquitous jet-fuel-flavored, sinus-scouring horseradish imposter--hie thee to one of the better sushi establishments in town, such as Katsu and delight in this bright green, spicy, palate cleanser.

Finally, upstairs in the U.S. Food Exports show, south Loop deli Manny's was launching a retail line of deli meat. That's right. Manny's corned beef and pastrami--already stocked in suburban Sunset Foods--may be coming to a supermarket near you.