Fancy Food
I got to attend the Fancy Food Show this week, courtesy of the wonderful and well-connected Jenn de la Vega. It was at the Javits Center and covered something like 4 football fields-worth of stalls. Seeing so much food at such scale with so much money flowing through it all, I naturally had thoughts about capitalism and conglomeration and the unrelenting drive to expand, etc, etc, but I don’t feel like writing about all that. Instead, I’ll just share some of the things I thought were cool.
Good-for-us products
Almost everyone, it seemed, was advertising their products as “healthy” and “sustainable,” which is great, although people make a lot of claims —especially on American food packaging — that sometimes doesn’t mean shit. Out on the floor, “healthy” was often defined by a list of omissions — no dairy, no gluten, no peanuts, no tree nuts — or by adding protein to something carb-based — wraps made from eggs, baked goods with nut flours. (I guess we haven’t moved on from the keto meme yet.) “Sustainable” often meant that they were using a byproduct of something else, but it was hard to tell when this a marketing gimmick or a truly productive intervention.
Not-nuts
I keep thinking about tiger nuts, which are actually little tubers, that I sampled at a booth by Not Nuts!, which runs the only tiger nut cooperative farm in Ghana. The flour tasted sweet and slightly like cinnamon all on its own, and made a delicious cracker. Another booth had Baru nuts, a legume from Brazil, that were deeply roasted and as rich as cashews.
Crunchy mushroom snax
Two booths right around the corner from each other made crunchy snacks from whole mushrooms. They were vacuum-fried, which I’ve learned means frying at such low pressure that boiling points are reduced, theoretically reducing the carcinogens that get released when oil is heated to higher temperatures. My favorites were the ones from from Mush Garden, which had less seasoning than Popadelics, and included whole cherry tomatoes and garlic cloves among the options.
Strong sauces
It’s hard to distinguish yourself in the world of jarred condiments, because there are just so many out there. They hail from different parts of the world, where there are often fresher counterparts that they reference, but once bottled and colorfully labeled, they tend to resemble each other and end up (in my house) shoved to the back of the fridge because I’m more interested in creating flavors from scratch.
That said, certain sauces did distinguish themselves. One was this Singaporean sambal by the Portland company Sibeiho. It was very savory but a little sweet from the caramelization of so many alliums, and just the perfect amount of spice so that you could pile it on without making your food inedible. The Matbucha from New York Shuk pairs preserved lemon with roasted tomatoes and hatch chiles, for another umami-rich sauce that’s just a little more acidic. And not least, I got to see Chitra Agrawal again of Brooklyn Delhi, which I knew in its infancy when I worked at Pilotworks. Her achaar, chutney, and “simmer sauces” are rich and complex, and like the others, can be used for cooking or as condiments.
What didn’t I see?
I’ve been expecting to see more algae-based foods, ever since tasting a protein bar from nonfood many years ago. Algae is such a nutritious and sustainable food that seems ripe for experimentation.
I was also expecting more in the fake meat category. I don’t particularly like fake meat, but I know that it’s becoming a huge market, and I hope that we haven’t completely ceded the territory to Beyond and Impossible. There were several fake fish companies attempting, with varying success, to replicate the texture of cooked or raw fish from legumes or bamboo. I probably wouldn’t buy those products (I think lion’s mane mushroom makes a perfectly good crab or white fish replacement, and versions of lox can be made from carrots or beets), but I’m happy for these companies to exist if they can do anything to slow our unsustainable fishing practices.
I would have liked an expanded fermentation section, with more experimental uses of fermentation beyond kimchi and sauerkraut. The one interesting vinegar stand, American Vinegar Works, made such an exceptional Porter Beer Malt Vinegar that I only felt hungry for more cool vinegars from surprising sources.
I’ve been telling anyone who will listen that “grains are the new beans” and that people are going to start paying attention to where they’re sourcing flour and experimenting with grains beyond wheat, but I actually didn’t see as many alternative grains as I was hoping. Yolélé’s fonio products were a welcome exception, and I loved the chips that I tried.
I had a great time overall, eating so many strange bites, and getting to chat with a surprising number of small food makers running their booths themselves. My pro-tips, should you ever make it out to this show or another food trade show: Watch the sugar (it adds up in all those tiny bites). Bring an empty backpack for all the samples, and kitchen shoes for all the strolling. Don’t let them scan your badge or RIP your inbox. Hang around in the last few hours before closing, and you get all the stuff people need to unload before leaving (the Brazilian papaya people clearly had too much — by the end, you just saw papayas scattered around everyone’s booths).
What I’m cooking
Spring potato frittata with crispy panko crust
A versatile frittata that you could pair with most spring vegetables, made special with crispy parmesan and panko crust (that also hides any imperfections, should you have them).
Recipes on Fridays for paid subscribers:
Luved this issue!