Good Enough to Eat

It’s called the Fancy Food Show – and sometimes it was the presentation that was fancy. Politics inspired the display at the Sabra booth today, where the New York-based maker of dips, spreads, salsas and salads, hired award-winning sand sculptor Kirk Rademaker to craft Obama, McCain and Clinton busts from 100 pounds of hummus.

“If the food industry is any indication, Obama will win the election,” said the company’s public relations woman, Ilya Welfield. Most visitors to the Sabra booth expressed their support for the Illinois Senator, she said.

Thousands of food industry players, including big distributors like Atalanta, with their mountains of cheeses and cases of meat, and smaller companies, like Artisan Biscuits, a cookie maker from Derbyshire, England, gathered at this year’s 54th annual Summer Fancy Food Show. The three-day event wrapped up today at the Jacob K. Javits Center.

More than 2,400 exhibitors from 80 states and countries spread out over three floors of the convention hall, displaying more than 180,000 foods and beverages to the 24,000 food distributors, buyers, retailers and other food-industry folks in attendance.

The Fancy Food Show is the annual event of the National Association for the Specialty Food Trade. The not-for-profit group was founded in 1952 to foster interest in the specialty food market. The show is open only to the trade. Exhibitors come to introduce new products; attendees come to sample the wares and make purchasing decisions.

“I come to ‘look’ at the chocolate, quote unquote, but I really come to eat,” said Margie Schmidt, owner of Schmidt’s Candy in the Woodhaven section of Queens. The shop has been in the family since 1926, she said. For 20 years, she’s been coming to the show.

Trends are always evident, Schmidt said. One year it was coffee. Another year, salsa and chips. This year: chocolate.

Brooklyn Fudge owner Amanda Jones was exhibiting at the show for the first time. Her company is eight months old. Born and raised in Virginia, Jones said her treats are based on a recipe from her Great Aunt Mae. The most popular flavor is dark wasabi pecan, made with the spicy green paste typically used as a condiment for sushi.

“That was a Brooklyn influence,” said Jones, with a nod to what she described as the borough’s opinionated taste testers.

Moonstruck Chocolatier offered election-themed confections: Election ’08 donkey and elephant truffles, individually wrapped or in an Election Connection four-pack.

Serendipity 3, the New York City restaurant famous for its extravagant ice cream sundaes and celebrity clientele, passed out samples of frozen hot chocolate. Serendipity snow globes, cookie jars and the company’s own chocolate-scented candle and perfume were also on display.

Show organizers honor outstanding foods each year. The award for outstanding new product went to Aux Delices des Bois black truffle butter, from Transatlantic Foods. Coach Farm’s triple cream goat cheese was named the 2008 outstanding cheese or dairy product.

Sheila Flanagan’s honey lavender fromage blanc was a finalist in the award contest. Based in Warrensburg, N.Y., the cheese maker said she infuses the milk with lavender tea, and then adds honey at the end.

At the Tropical Blossom Honey booth, Doug McGinnes said the bees are disappearing. He offered hand-outs that explained the phenomenon, called Colony Collapse Disorder, and samples of gall berry honey, which the Edgewater, Fla., entrepreneur described as “a great honey with an awful name.” The mild, floral-flavored honey comes from the nectar of the Florida holly bush, McGinnes said.

Where does all the food go at the end of the show? Three hundred City Harvest volunteers were scheduled to flood the aisles at 4:00, to collect an estimated 100,000 pounds of olive oils, cheeses, jams, crackers and other items for food pantries and soup kitchens across New York City.

At 3:00, Margie Schmidt, the candy maker, sat outside the exhibit hall, surrounded by plastic bags filled with samples and other items collected at the show.

“I’ll waddle home,” she said. “I should walk back to Queens. Forget the train.”

Note: This story was an assignment from Professor Beth Whitehouse, Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism