By Mordechai Schmutter
People sometimes ask me why I write about Kosherfest every year. Kosherfest is a trade show, and, as such, is only open to people in the kosher-food industry. Though I suppose that technically, every Jew is in the kosher-food industry. According to official reports, there were at least 6,000 people there, and they were all in the same aisle as me at all times. (This was in the report, I believe.) It’s like we moved as a wave, with people standing in the aisles and noshing on food samples, totally oblivious to the people behind them. (“Everyone can wait. I’m eating my quarter of a knish now. I’ll be done in five minutes.”)
OK, so I’m not in the food industry. I’m in the English-writing industry, so I walk around all day having grammar-related thoughts about company names, such as, “What do they mean by the name ‘Really Great Food Company’? Is it the food that’s really great, or is the company great, but the food’s just OK?”
But as press, I get a badge, which I have to show the guard when I come in so he could wand me anyway.
“Hey, why are you wanding me?”
“I’m a guard.”
“How do I know you’re really a guard? Oh, a badge. That’s convincing.”
So most people are there for tachlis. Some are there for the samples, but that’s not really a reason to go, because it costs like 90 bucks to get in, and most of the samples are so tiny that to make the money back, you’d have to spend the entire time taking samples while wearing different disguises. You find out what it’s like to eat one-twentieth of a slice of pizza, or the part of a popsicle that doesn’t have a stick, or a single piece of sushi in a schnapps glass. (Fun Fact: Sushi sticks to the inside of a schnapps glass. You have to lean back and pat the bottom of the glass, and then it falls out and hits you in the face just as people come by and introduce themselves.)
Also, a lot of booths were giving out cloth bags to carry samples in, despite the signs saying that you can walk out of the hall with only one bag of samples. (Someone’s walking out with a bag full of cloth bags.) On my way out one day, the guards stopped me because I had a bag of samples and a bag of work stuff, and they told me to put one bag into the other bag–in front of them–so I could walk out holding one bag.
They have their fun.
The reason I go, besides to pick up my year’s supply of pens, is not just to talk about Kosherfest itself in an article for the 10th time. It’s to inform the public of new foods that they should look out for (except for anything at the wine booths), as well as general trends that I’ve noticed about the industry in general.
For example, there’s a trend–and I know this because this is the second year it’s happened–of people giving me foods that are too hot to eat and then trying to talk to me while I blow on it. One person handed me a really hot salmon dog mid-conversation, and I had nowhere to put it while I was writing what he was saying, so I put it on my clipboard and had to keep shifting back and forth to stop it from rolling off. Another person handed me a tiny cup of scalding hot tea and evidently expected me to stand there for a half-hour waiting for it to cool off so I could tell him if I could actually taste which region of Israel the leaves were from (Ein Gedi).
And speaking of drinks, there’s also a trend to mix things together to make new juices, because we’ve already pretty much discovered all the fruits, and now all that’s left, if you want to invent new juices, is to mix them. I tried one flavor called “Harvest Greens,” which sounds like a flavor that changes by the season, based on what ends up growing in their garden. Everything in the drink was green–kiwi, green apple, cucumber, spinach, kale . . . And it was surprisingly OK.
(Wait until you see this in their ads: “Surprisingly OK!” –M. Schmutter, 5TJT.)
Then I tried another flavor called Harvest Reds, which was made of carrots, ginger, beets, and purple sweet potatoes. I could really taste the beets.
(“I could really taste the beets!” –M. Schmutter, 5TJT.)
And speaking of color, and tasting the beets, the new trend in gefilte fish is to make it colorful. I tried a piece of gefilte fish that was three colors–green, pink, and standard concrete gray. Generally, when my fish is three colors, I throw it out, but this was made that way on purpose.
“How are we supposed to tell when it’s gone bad?” you ask.
You taste it.
“Thanks.”
“Gefilte fish is the only food that is not available without a hechsher,” the fish guy told me as my salmon dog rolled off my clipboard. It’s an interesting bit of trivia, but I don’t know how he knows that. Is there someone specifically going around and requesting gefilte fish without a hechsher? What kind of anti-Semite is like, “I love gefilte fish, but I don’t want to give the Jews my money. Do you have any without a hecksher? Maybe with some lobster mixed in?”
I told him that, to be honest, the gefilte fish didn’t really taste that different than uni-colored gefilte fish. So he gave me a whole speech about how 50% of eating is about how it looks, and how food doesn’t taste as good in the dark or if you wolf it down. On a toothpick, while getting elbowed by passersby and trying to pick up a salmon dog off the floor.
(On a related note, I’ve also heard that 50% of eating is about how the food smells. So taste doesn’t even factor in, apparently.)
And that brings us to desserts. There were a lot of booths with gorgeous desserts that I was afraid to eat, like at a kiddush where no one wants to touch the cake because it’s so nice. They’re more expensive, but you get to put out fewer of them because no one eats them. Also, half the time those cakes don’t taste great anyway, so you might as well make them pretty to look at–because 50% of eating is how it looks–and daven that the lights don’t go out.
There were also an inordinate number of booths doing things with tahini. And I was eager to try some, if only to figure out the difference between tahini and techina. Is tahini the plural? “One techina; many tahini?”
Unfortunately, there was no one to ask, because these booths were very busy and staffed by Israelis, and I didn’t want to bother them. They flew into the country to make million-dollar business deals, speak Hebrew really quickly, and smoke in front of all the exits–not to answer grammar questions from humor writers.
So I tasted some kind of small tahini brick, and it turns out it tastes nothing like the stuff you put on your falafel. There were actually a lot of delicious flavors in there, meant to distract you from the fact that you’re chewing sand.
“Can you taste which region of Israel it’s from?”
“Yes, the Negev.”
And speaking of grainy, another major trend was giant salt. One booth I saw had something called “Himalayan pink salt.” They had shakers and grinders and a huge pink pillar of salt that I can only assume was Lot’s wife. It’s nice that she’s getting work these days.
Pink salt is supposed to be the purest salt on the planet, and has lots of benefits such as stronger flavors, more nutrients, and higher visibility on white challah boards. I personally have been using white salt, which my wife puts on the corner of the board right before I make ha’motzi, and then, as soon as I cut the challah, I have no idea which corner she put it on. Sometimes I touch the challah to all four corners to be safe, and then some weeks, my wife makes a kind of “Oh” noise and adds the salt then. So pink salt would definitely be helpful.
We should also find out if it makes pink salt water. We can stop losing potatoes.
Mordechai Schmutter is a weekly humor columnist for Hamodia and is the author of five books, published by Israel Book Shop. He also does freelance writing for hire. You can send any questions, comments, or ideas to MSchmutter@gmail.com.
