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.
Olives themselves were prominent too, along with regional cheeses like Feta, lots of high-end Spanish hams and sausages including those made from acorn eating Iberico pigs, and yet to become widely popular grains like farro. One particular product that caught my eye - and tongue - was delicious chorizo made in upstate New York by Imperial Chorizo, which hired a sausage maker from the Extremadura region of Spain to make the sausage in the traditional style of his hometown and only from traditional natural ingredients, including the finest imported Spanish paprika. Another booth was devoted to Parmacotto, a traditional Tuscan cured ham which I wrote about recently here in this column. Made in the same loving manner for centuries in Tuscany, where it has protected status from the European Union for its unique quality and taste, Parmacotto has been imported into the US for less than a year and is already making inroads. Many other delicious foodstuffs from the Mediterranean basin were here on the way to being “discovered” by American palates.
Also in the world of processed meats, there was a notable trickle down effect from the ongoing trend towards better quality natural meats in their whole forms. Several domestic salami and sausage producers were displaying versions made from only 100% Berkshire Pigs or other rare breeds, from hormone and antibiotic meats, and other spins on the movement away from commercially farmed mass market meat. Just a couple of years ago it was tough to find simple steaks of grass fed natural beef in any market, but now consumers looking for purity and flavor of better raised meats will find them in all sorts of forms and products, including bacon and hot dogs.
The biggest underlying theme of this year’s show was craft, artisanship and tradition versus processed foods, though there were still plenty of those. Hard to find regional ingredients are not only becoming much more commonplace, they are increasingly available in much higher quality.
Show officials cited cheese as one of the top categories this year, and cheeses from all across the world were on display in a big way, with a definite focus on less process and more craft. There was a deep selection of imported traditional regional cheeses from France, Italy, Spain, England and all the usual suspects, plus plenty of newer, small artisanal US cheese makers. Expect more good cheese selections in supermarkets without having to go to specialty cheese retailers to find them.
Celebrity branded foods were in fine form, as the whole TV-driven celebrity chef and food personality thing shows no sign of slowing. Stalls were devoted to jarred pasta sauces from Emeril Lagasse, Guy Fieri and Mario Batali, cooking sauces from Cat Cora, and molecular gastronomy at home kits from Ferran Adria of El Bulli fame. The biggest celebrity launch this year was a big new line of sauces, vinegars, oils and seafood from Jose Andres, the Spanish chef credited with helping to popularize tapas-style small plate dining in this country. Andres has prominent eateries in Washington DC, Vegas, LA and at the new Ritz Carlton Reserve in Dorado Beach, Puerto Rico, which I wrote about in this column when it opened. I would definitely expect to see Andres’ products on the shelves of higher end gourmet stores around the country very soon.
Finally, gluten free products of every description were big, including cookies, crackers and even macaroni and cheese. Just a few years ago it was hard for people to find gluten free products at all, and now there are countless choices. In this vein, another fast growing niche is “alternative” pastas, not just the whole wheat versions that have become commonplace in the last few years, but ones made of everything from quinoa to rice to artichoke leaves.
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