I spent Monday at the Fancy Food Show in New York City, the biggest and most influential show of its kind in the country. In its 59th edition, the show is put on by the Specialty Food Association, a not-for-profit trade association for food artisans, importers and entrepreneurs. About 2,400 food purveyors spanning 40 product categories from all over the world set up shop in booths to court buyers from supermarkets, fancy mail order catalogs, retail gourmet and kitchen shops, from individual storefronts to Williams Sonoma buyers. From the massive array of products here they will pick the hot ones that will soon be on store shelves and set the trend for what American consumers are buying, cooking and eating.
Every imaginable foodstuff was on display, from traditionally cured high-end Spanish and Italian ham to jarred pasta sauce and boil in bag dinners. I walked the aisles and rubbed shoulders with producers trying to figure out what this year’s show trends were. Here’s what I found:
Of all regional cuisines, foods from the Mediterranean, excluding Italy, which has always been the biggest in terms of international culinary products, stole the show. Yogurt, especially Greek style and specialty versions of goat and sheep milk, continue booming. Olive oil was everywhere, including small batch, single estate, organic and mass produced versions, from Spain, Italy, Greece, Turkey, all over the region. It’s not like olive oil is new or unknown in this country, but much of what we have to choose from over here is much more inferior than most consumers know, a topic I have touched on in my articles about fake Japanese beef and fake fish in this column. Independent craft producers and the broader sale of regionally regulated PDO certified olive oils will allow American consumers to more readily get the real stuff, which is both tastier and healthier.
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