Last week, Pam and I went to our first Fancy Food Show in San Francisco.  As Pam wrote in her blog, there were more than 1000 specialty food companies showcasing their products.  I was both overwhelmed and awed at the variety of products and the sheer number of similar products as well…and this show highlighted a small percentage of the specialty food producers around the world.

I noticed some trends in foods that I thought were interesting.  First, the flavor of the year seems to be blood orange.  Dream Foods International had a delicious Organic Italian Volcano Blood Orange Juice.  Torani, the maker of those syrups you love for your Italian sodas, debuted their blood orange syrup at the show.  I had the opportunity to taste a delicious blood orange smoothie made with the new syrup—I wish I had more! 

Blood orange olive oils pointed to the flavor trend of the year as well as a second trend—flavored olive oils.  Stella Cadente, a local producer of extra virgin olive oil, had a lovely Blood Orange Olive Oil made by pressing both organic late-harvest mission olives and blood oranges together.  This oil had a spicy citrus notes and a lovely flavor.  They also had Basil, Meyer lemon and Persian Lime oils.  O Olive Oil also had a blood orange olive oil, along with other citrus flavors including Jalapeno Lime.  In addition to their citrus oil, Santa Barbara Olive Oil Co. had more savory oils including Chile, Rosemary, Rosemary-Sage, Roasted Garlic and Basil and Italian oil.  It may not be a coincidence that all three purveyors of the infused olive oils I tasted are based in California.

The third trend was in chocolate.  I noticed a lot of the chocolate producers are debuting bars that have bits of cacao nibs in them.  Scharffen Berger had a milk chocolate with nibs that was mild and sweet with the surprising flavor and texture of the nibs exploding with each bite.  What I didn’t know, and found out later, is that Hershey acquired both Scharffen Berger and Joseph Schmidt Confections in 2005 to expand their presence in the premium chocolate segment.  Both Scharffen Berger and Joseph Schmidt are local companies with a very strong local following, and while I loved the independent spirit that founded these companies, the acquisitions have not had an impact on the quality of their respective products.  Dagoba Organic Chocolate had a Nibs bar with dark chocolate and cacao nibs that was rich and addictive.  Their approach to their business—what they call Full Circle Sustainability—takes a socially responsible approach to their product, from quality to community.  Their approach definitely shows in their final product.  They also had other premium chocolate bars, including one they called Seeds—a dark chocolate infused with hemp, pumpkin and sunflower seeds.  What I liked about this bar was the inclusion of salted roasted seeds.  The salt in the seeds brought out and heightened the pure deep chocolate flavor and added lovely texture to the bar.

This was just a small sampling of what I tasted.  Sauces, cheeses, chocolates, cookies, ice creams, oh my!  I also found a new product to delight my grandchildren—cookie coloring kits from Color-a-Cookie.  They are iced sugar cookies that have favorite licensed characters printed on them—coloring book style—and packaged with food-coloring markers.  The kids can play with their food and eat it too!  However, at the end of the day, my favorite tasting of all was at the Premium Port Wines booth—the makers of Graham’s and Dow’s ports.  They offered tastings of six different ports paired with chocolate and cheeses that were the highlight of my tasting experience.  The Dow’s 20, a tawny port aged 20 years, was like nectar.  What a way to end the show!

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