Fancy Food Show makes debut here

March 23, 1999

BY NEIL STEINBERG STAFF REPORTER

Deep chocolate truffles and exotic honey mustard. Trays of imported cheeses, smoked salmon, barbecue, pate. The Scorned Woman line of hot sauce and salsa. And Cheryl Surana's mushroom-shaped meringue cookie, dusted in cocoa, with dark chocolate spores.

About 30,000 speciality products are on display at the National Association for the Speciality Food Trade's Fancy Food Show, which closes today at McCormick Place. This is the first time the show has been held here--it's a fixture on the East and West coasts.

Like most such shows, it is restricted to the trade. No public allowed. Buyers of exotic foods, industry representatives and store wholesalers wander and sample, place orders and quaff all the wine and spirits they want.

As pleasant as it is to wander and sample, chat, sip and nibble, it's still business, and the idea of letting the public in, while generating tax dollars for the city, does not go down well with many vendors.

``The public?'' said Mark Behounek, production manager of Aunt Aggie De's Pralines of Sinton, Texas, making a face as if he had just eaten a putrid walnut. ``Bad idea. Here's the problem. You want to do business here.''

Behounek said the result of admitting the public would be to discourage vendors from attending the show.

``It'll be too crowded,'' said Jeff Alexander, of Kopper's Chocolate Specialties of New York.

He said the New York show used to be open to the paying public, but that ended for the same reason. He suggested that a separate area for the public could be set up, or the public could be invited for a limited time, such as the last day.

``This is a trade show,'' said Sherrie Eggerod, displaying the metal, gasket-sealed canisters holding products of the Republic of Tea. ``We're here to educate our customers, not their customers, the consumers. As much as we'd like to, we can't.''

Not every vendor was against the idea, however. Don Monod, the enthusiastic co-founder of Life in Provence, seemed to embrace the idea of selling his line of dressings, vegetable spreads, olive oils and tapenades from southern France directly to the public, one by one, at such shows.

``I think it's a brilliant idea,'' he said, adding that the public seems to find its way into the shows anyway. ``A lot of people just want to have good food. We tell them to buy our products; we love that.''

Scott and Caroline Blackwell, whose folk-art-decorated Immaculate Consumption cookie boxes are sold in the House of Blues, thought that while admitting the public might make it ``hard to focus'' on business, there might be an upside to letting them in, perhaps for the last day.