Transcript 0:00 So what is the more interesting bite I've had? Oh, no. Did we have, like, a yuzu popsicle, or was that just me? I think that might've been just you. 0:12 [laughs] Hi, welcome to Shut Up and Eat, the podcast about food, restaurants, chefs, cooking, and everything else we're obsessed with. I'm Cathy Erway. And I'm Matt Gross. 0:25 We're both New Yorkers who love to cook, eat, travel, and write. This week we're going to the Fancy Food Show, the country's biggest packaged foods convention, in search of trends, friends, and flavors. 0:38 Be sure to subscribe to this podcast and sign up for our weekly newsletter, an essential part of the Shut Up and Eat experience. And now let's talk about the Fancy Food Show. You know my love is sweet. 0:51 Last month we went to the Fancy Food Show. Oh, I love this event. It takes place over three days in New York City's Jacob Javits Center, which is... 1:02 It's the enormous, like, sprawling convention center, and it's like every food you can imagine under the sun convenes for these three days, where buyers go galore, vendors are showing off their wares. 1:16 There's samples of food everywhere, and it's just... It's a real big industry event. W- what, what kind of food are we talking about? Apples, oranges, pears- So-... tomatoes... two... 1:27 2,500, like, vendors, and it's, like, something, like, 40 different categories. So, you know, it's, it's CPG brands basically. It's like... It's, it's beverages- What is CPG? Uh, consumer packaged goods. 1:42 So it's anything you might see in a supermarket that isn't, like, a whole head of cabbage, right? So it's just, like, anything that's packaged, it's branded, it's a product that you can buy. 1:53 It might be pr- it might be processed. It, um, [laughs] you know, it, it might be something as simple as, um, like, you know, juice that is, like, sold in a different type of packaging or something like that. 2:06 Or it's, like, a functional beverage, which is a, a trend that we saw quite a lot of. Yeah. Um- There's a lot of snacks... we don't have to get into that, but yeah... There was snacks, a lot of simmer sauces... 2:17 a lot of snacks. Things to eat on their own, and things to help you cook other things, right? That's increasingly... Yeah, I think that that's increasingly what, um, a lot of these food brands are doing. 2:29 Um, I got to catch up, for example, with Chutha, Chuthra Agrawal, who has a brand called Brooklyn Deli. 2:35 Um, it originally was, um, Indian pickle, achar, and it has since grown into a full line of, like, simmer sauces, and also ready-to-just-reheat dishes like daals and, and curries. So it's, uh... 2:51 You know, I, I think that this is what a lot of brands... It's just, like, an ex- It's just basically a huge exhibit of, of what you might see in a grocery store, but the behind-the-scenes part of it. 3:02 Yeah, and it's times a million. I mean, there's, I think, 2,400 vendors listed on their website. Uh, and it's just, it's, it's bewildering. From 54 different countries. Yeah. 3:13 Um- The countries have their own aisles and presentations, so... Yeah, pavilions. Like, there's a Ja- Japan aisle. France and Italy. A huge amount of swaths of space for Italy. The nation of Wisconsin. 3:27 [laughs] Lots of cheese. [laughs] Tons of cheese. Egypt and Turkey had their own areas there. Yeah. And then just lots of stuff scattered around. It is... Y- you could... It's... 3:37 The, the convention goes on for three days because it can take you three days to just sort of wander through everything and actually feel like you've paid attention to all of it. It is just enormous, enormous. 3:50 And I gotta say, like, we're sort of, like, the interlopers here as, like, you know, writers or journalists. Um, this is mostly for buyers and, and the wholesalers themselves, and th- what they're doing is making deals. 4:03 And even our friend... We got to meet up with Christine Liu, a co-founder of Hey Doe, which is a new soy sauce brand, um, that launched just last year, and it... She wasn't even... She didn't even have a table. 4:15 She was just there to have, like, all these meetings with different potential partners and buyers and so forth. So she was just, like, making deals the whole time. And- Yeah, with a backpack full of soy sauce. 4:24 Exactly, yeah. [laughs] And this has been going on... I mean, the Fancy Food Show has been going on for 70 years now. I know. I can't imagine. And it started in the '50s, so it's, like... It's a real tradition. 4:36 I just love to imagine what fancy food meant in 1959 and 1960. Yeah. Is it- Well-... you know, shrink-wrapped deviled eggs? I, I don't, I don't even know. [laughs] I... 4:48 It's so hard to cast my mind back to what that could've been. Yeah, it's, it's always been run by the Specialty Food Association, which, which means it's kind of like... You know, it's not your, um... I, I don't know. 5:01 It's specialty foods, right? So it's always been, like, in this, like, sort of, um, category of, uh... 5:06 You know, it includes luxury foods, but it's not always, like, you know, unreachably, like, luxurious or anything like that. I have to check though, Matt. 5:14 Do you recall back in 2008 to 2010, Brooklyn, Williamsburg to be very specific, there was the Unfancy Food Show. Ooh. 5:24 And this was sort of like a down with the man, sort of like indie brands back when, like, Brooklyn everything, um, pickles, jams, and so forth- No, I didn't see that... um, were all the rage. Yeah, I... 5:38 That was my first sort of exposure to what the Fancy Food Show was like, going to what was sort of, like, you know, the opposite of that, or so the founders thought. Were there... 5:49 Did you see any brands at the Unfancy Food Show that are still around- Oh... and that we remember today? Ooh, that's a great question. Most of them... I mean, Mast Brothers Chocolate is still around. The... 6:02 There's been a lot of different pickle brands. I saw Rick Field at the Fancy Food Show- Mm... last month, and he w- had f- of course, Rick F- uh, Rick's Picks pickle company, one of, like, the 6:14 Um, few Brooklyn-based pickle companies to come out of that era Yeah, they were one of the sort of pioneers of the- They were, yeah... the modern pickle revolution. Mm-hmm. 6:24 And I'd seen them before at the Fancy Food Show. Um, Rick has since left the company. He's now, like, a food consultant. But anyway, the, yeah, the brand is going strong. 6:34 And yeah, there's been a lot of brands that have folded, though, [laughs] since then. [laughs] I think that is a common, sadly common- Yeah... occurrence in the- I mean, startups. But like, and it... 6:44 Like, these were indie startups, and so many- Yeah... big brands have also folded, I'm sure, in that time too. Yeah. You know. Oh, definitely. Big investor-backed CPG brands also, you know, don't always make it. 6:59 I was laughing with another food writer friend about how, like, functional beverages are just everywhere. Just the term functional beverages, it's just, like, being thrown around with abandon these days. 7:10 Um- What, what is in a functional beverage? It just means added, like, something or other that does, like, something good for you, right? Like, so it could be electrolytes. It could be protein. I don't know. 7:23 It could be, um... Usually there's, like, something more fancy like, you know, ashwagandha or, like, some mushroom stuff that helps your brain supposedly. You know, supplements, basically. Um, yeah. 7:35 [laughs] I have a lot of complicated feelings [laughs] about that sort of thing. Oh, my goodness. You wouldn't... You would love to see my inbox when it comes to, like, pitches for all these products too. 7:47 Um, I mean, for the most part, like, I, I do applaud, like, advancements in, like, health-conscious food products. Um, but yeah, the functional trend is pretty funny because it's like, what do you mean? It's a beverage. 8:01 It functions to hydrate you, right? [laughs] Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. So, um, flour. [laughs] Oh, yeah. One of the, uh- Fancy flour. I remember that... 8:17 displays there in, in the, in the Italian pavilion or the Italian aisles was a flour mill out of northern Italy, out of Mantua, called Molino Passini, and they make an enormous number of different types of flours, uh, from different types of grains. 8:39 So this is Rick Marino of RCN Imports. He is the guy bringing, uh, Molino Passini flour into the United States from Italy. Molino Passini mills flour only. RCN Imports imports a variety of items. 8:57 So back to Molino Passini, it's not just flour. There's special flour for pizza, and if you look quickly, you could see there's 9:08 15 different types of flour varying in different t- strength, flour to make every type of pizza. Do you want Neapolitan, New York style, Detroit style, Roman style? Then outside of the pizza, we go into the pasta. 9:23 Semolina, re-milled semolina, uh, double zero soft wheat pasta flour, gnocchi flour, so everything to make different pa- pasta, from fresh pasta ravioli to extruded pasta. 9:38 Then we have bread and pastry flour to make panettone, to make croissants, to make bombolini, to make cookies, to make cakes. So that gives you a little overview. How many different flours is that? 9:51 We probably carry in the United States, uh, 60 different flours, and the mill produces probably, uh, 160 different flours. That's amazing. So there's something for, something for everybody. 10:06 I mean, it's like, I know about some of these gradations, but, you know- Yes... I wouldn't... I know about, you know, pizza flour. Right. 10:12 But I wouldn't have thought that there was- Well, different pizza flour does different things. Yeah, exactly. Depends on what the chef wants to do. But what is, uh, what is the New York pizza flour? 10:21 The New York pizza flour is, uh, it has more of a bite to it. 10:25 It's crispy, but it has a nice bite to it, as opposed to a Neapolitan, which is probably a little bit softer and a little bit s- uh, softer in the middle and doughier on the edges. 10:36 What does that mean in terms of protein and gluten content? Yeah, the protein, uh, the, it varies. It varies from 10, 11% up to 15%. Higher the protein, higher the chew. Not always what is the best thing. 10:49 People think higher protein, better flour. Not always true. Right. Wanting... All right, and, uh, with, with 60 different- [laughs]... uh, flours on offer, do you even bother with an all-purpose flour? 11:01 Well, we c- you can call it an all-purpose flour. You can use many of our flours for all purpose. Yeah. Our chef uses our number-one selling pizza flour to make pancakes at home on the weekend. So it's, flour is flour. 11:15 A good, clean flour, unbleached, non-bromated, is good, clean flour, no matter how you look at it. Cool. Yeah. 11:23 [laughs] I mean, it's like, I know, yeah, I know there's different types of flours, obviously, and serious- Yeah... restaurants and producers are gonna want very specific kinds of flour. 11:35 But I mean, that's a lot of flour. That is really fascinating. I'm curious if they're looking for mostly wholesale buyers at this point. 11:44 I would imagine that's what they're here for because the idea of a retail store carrying this type of specialty flour for, like, an average customer in a store is, uh, maybe a little advanced, but maybe not. 11:57 I'm not sure. [laughs] I mean, I could see- I think it's cool... I could see places in New York that would carry, like, uh- Yes... you know, Neapolitan-style pizza flour versus- Mm-hmm... New York s- style pizza flour. 12:07 But I think, I think bombolini flour, probably not a huge market for it yet, although, I mean, bombolini are pretty awesome. I would like to eat those all the time made with special bombolini flour. 12:20 I forgot to mention one of the great things about going to this fest is all the food samples. Like, you can just eat so much in one day just sampling everything. And now, what exactly was this flour vendor sampling? 12:35 [laughs] Just- I can't remember... big spoonfuls of flour. [laughs] No, they had, um, they had a, uh, pasta station and a pizza station. Oh. So if you waited, which I just, like, there wasn't really time to wait- Yeah... 12:48 to, to get the, the things 'cause there was a lot of competition for it. 'Cause they were making it fresh, yeah. They were making it fresh. They had a chef there with a little- Mm-hmm... 12:56 you know, white toque and white apron- [laughs]... uh, making, making the pizza and making the pasta. So, um, I'm sure it was delicious. I would think it was fantastic. 13:04 I'm not sure if I could have tasted the gradations of flour in that pizza and those, in that pasta. Mm. 13:12 Um, I assume they're using the right ones, but, uh, my, my palate, my palate while, of course, obviously is incredibly finely developed, as is yours- [laughs]... I don't know that I could say, "Well- No... 13:25 you could probably have milled this in the, a little finer and it- Uh... needed a little more protein or gluten or whatever." I, I, I can't say that. 13:32 [laughs] But, you know, tasting is believing, so if I had, like, the best, the world's best pasta or pizza from them, you know, it's, it's, the proof is in the pasta- [laughs]... or pizza there. 13:46 Um- If I was good at this, I mean, if, you know, if I was a serious, serious pasta maker, I would probably be- Yeah... seeking this stuff out just to- Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm... experiment with it. And, um, 13:56 you know, I, I, and the, the crazy thing is this is just one flour importer. [laughs] There are other- Oh, of course... 14:02 flour importers from Italy as well, and so their stuff, I, who knows is, you know, Mulino Passini, is that the best possible or- You can-... is there another mulino that is doing- Yeah... other incredible stuff? 14:14 And for them, 160 flours is, like, just the beginning, and they're onto, you know, 300, 400, 500 different flours. Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. [laughs] And imagine being a buyer. You can, like, take your pick. 14:25 It's like th- you, you got the world showing up for you to choose from. It's pretty cool. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Let me tell you about some of my favorite discoveries this year. Now, I, 14:37 I have a sort of penchant for frozen Asian convenience foods. Mm. It's particularly dumplings, which, um, is just something that I grew up with and I'm, I'm seeing all over the place nowadays. 14:51 Um, I find frozen dumplings in my local, like, American rest- uh, supermarket, and I, I wrote a little piece about this about a year ago for Taste, and it was great to see Mimi Cheng's dumplings, who was featured in that piece, show up, and they are just... 15:06 They just recently went national with their frozen dumpling line. This was, like, just a small dumpling shop in New York City when it started out, so they are going the CPG route now, from restaurant to CPG. 15:19 And, um, but sort of dumpling adjacent, um, I, I saw a really, really cool refreshing vendor, um, which recently launched actually, and they're selling a frozen food product from Fuzhou that is essentially a potato ball with, like, dumpling-esque filling inside in a th- a few different flavors. 15:40 Um, I, I thought this was just such a good product. Of course, I loved sampling it, um, and trying it. It has a chewy, potatoey outside that is not like, you know, a, a throwaway dumpling skin. 15:53 It's not something that you don't wanna have be too thick, you know, like dumplings, 'cause you like the thick- Like, I personally like the thickness of it, um, 'cause the texture is great. The flavor is great. Um, 16:05 the founder, Christina, and her brother, Brian, it's actually a, a brother-sister startup, which is kinda charming. Um, she mentioned that they made... 16:15 They formulated their dumplings to be, um, slightly more filling forward than the ones that they had grown up with, but just, you know, kind of compete in this market of, like, I don't know, protein heads or [laughs] who knows what. 16:29 People who wanna see a little bit more of the filling than the, the wrapper. 16:32 But, uh, otherwise, they're, they're bringing a really cool, new, authentic Chinese product to the frozen food aisles, and I'm really excited about it. So let's hear a little bit from Christina. 16:45 [laughs] My name's Christina. I'm the founder, co-founder of Chen's Yi. Um, and we started this about eight months ago, October 2025. So I moved to Singapore for work, and I was there for about two years. 16:57 Lost access to the regional Chinese food that I grew up eating, and I realized this is a recipe that lives in the hands of my parents, and it would disappear as they continue to age. 17:07 And so this is something that I want to carry forward for, you know, my kids, their kids, and anyone else. And so when I moved back to New York last year, I started to build Chen's Yi out of preservation. 17:18 Is this something that your parents would make for you? Yes. Oh, my goodness. They would make this from scratch all the time. Yeah. And funny enough, the recipe has never been written down. 17:27 Like, Asian parents don't write anything down. Everything is, like, skill or by your feelings. Um, and so- Because when you're dealing with, like, dough, it's just hard to, like- Yes. Yeah. Exactly. Exactly. 17:38 And so we- I started to tweak with the recipe in Singapore, um, to make it a little more my preferred taste versus, like, you know, um, we don't use seaweed, which is traditional. 17:50 Um, my mom doesn't like seaweed in the filling. In the filling? Yeah. So traditionally there's seaweed in the filling, and so we don't use seaweed. 17:57 There's also a better meat-to-dough ratio, because traditionally people like the dough- Yeah... and so there's generally more dough. Yeah. 18:06 But for us, we like meat as well, so we're like, "Let's make it feel a little more balanced." Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know what I like about it? It's very dummy proof. You can boil it, and it won't burst. 18:15 1,000%. Yeah. Yes, 1,000%. You can boil it, and it's fully cooked. So the way that we process it, it's fully cooked. Um, you can pan fry it, boil it, steam it. Yeah. 18:25 And I mean, so we're full season vendors at Smorgasburg. We run through thousands of potato balls every weekend, and we... 18:32 Like, our team is so operationally efficient that, like- When we bring on someone who has never touched a stove before, they get the hang of this in, like, one hour. It's fast. So cool. Yeah. 18:43 I love that you're introducing- Yeah... a pretty new- That one's not-... food- We're trying to figure out... but it's still familiar. Yeah. And, yeah. 18:49 That's been the really fascinating thing, too, with building this, is that it's different, right? Yeah. 18:53 It's very unique, but it resonates with a lot of different people because everyone has a form of potato and meat in their culture. That's true. 19:01 Yeah, and so everyone's like, "Oh, this feels like something that I've eaten back home." And I'm like, "That's amazing." Yeah. Obviously this is, like, from Fuzhou, China, not, you know, so. Yeah. Yeah. 19:13 It's been really cool. Yeah, and they just kind of, like, have this wonderful food product, and it's something that you don't see in America too often. Not even in restaurants. No, except that, I mean, one of the... 19:26 I'm so glad you, you mentioned them in, in this podcast today because, uh, w- we wrote about- Yes... Fu- uh, Fuzhou potato balls in the newsletter just a couple weeks ago. Absolutely. Yeah. 19:37 Uh, this was, there's a place in Manhattan on East Broadway called Ga Ga Jiao that, uh, Patty Lee, the chef at Lei, uh, told us about. And she was super excited about these potato balls. 19:50 So I had just eaten these down there, and they're, as Cathy said, they're bouncy and squishy and juicy and meaty on the inside. And they are, uh, actually kind of a riff on Fuzhou's more famous fish balls. Mm. 20:06 Fish, yeah. Mm-hmm. So it's like a- Yeah... fish paste stuffed with kinda sweet, savory roast pork, kinda ground pork filling. Yeah. And- And you could have any filling. They have a veggie filling, too. Mm. 20:17 They're from Quanzhou, and yeah. So I think, like, absolutely, next... This is the next trend. Everyone is gonna be- Totally... eating Fuzhou potato balls, you know. Mm-hmm. 20:28 Whether they're from Quanzhou or they're getting them at Ga Ga Jiao, like, this is gonna be the thing. I have to say, it also dovetails with, like, a growing visibility and pride in Fuzhou cuisine- Mm... 20:40 that hasn't really always risen to the surface until more recent years. I know, um, Alan Chow and a friend of mine, Jess Ang, are working on a Fuzhou cookbook. 20:49 And, um, there's been a lot of, um, you know, just more celebration of, like, Fuzhounese cuisine. I think I wrote about Fuzhou rice wine for Food & Wine earlier this year. 21:00 And, uh, it's just something that I think a younger generation, like Christina and her brother Brian, are really taking pride in, and they're wanting to celebrate it. I wonder if there's a timeline for that. 21:10 Like, uh, Fuzhou- [laughs]... Fujian immigration to the US I think started in late '80s, early '90s. Um, and I wonder if it's... Can you just calculate, okay, ev- 30, it takes 35 years- [laughs]... 21:23 from the arrival of a particular- S-... you know, ethnic- Yeah... group in the US from, going from, you know, bare-bones immigrants to consumer packaged goods at the Fancy Food Show. Yeah, the second... 21:35 Thanks to the second generation, right? Yeah. Yeah. I mean- Oh, it's cool. It's cool to witness this. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. And the food is great, too. [laughs] [upbeat music] All right. 21:46 What are some other highlights that we saw? I know I'm gonna keep talking about basics, but I will get to one trend eventually. 21:53 But the other company that I encountered there, and I just absolutely loved their, their product, was American Vinegar Works, right? Like, how much do you think about your vinegar? Mm. 22:06 Uh, supermarket vinegar is often just sort of basic-ass red wine vinegar. You know, there's some good rice vinegars out there that I use, but, 22:15 uh, it's hard to find in the US people making really, really, really serious vinegar vinegar. But these guys at American Vinegar Works in Worcester, Massachusetts, are doing things super, super old school. 22:29 They're using a design for a vinegar-making machine from 1823, which is before vinegar got, like, industrialized and commodified. And what they produce is just incredible, flavorful vinegar. 22:44 Uh, one of their secrets besides these ancient machines is that they are using really good quality alcohol to start with. So they are going and getting, uh, great sake from California. They are using real wine. 23:01 They did an Oktoberfest vinegar with Sam Adams, so they're using Sam Adams Oktoberfest beer as the base for their malt vinegar. This is just really neat. 23:10 And it, it, it goes to show, and you'll see this in different corners of the food world, especially these, these ingredients like vinegar that are transformed out of other ingredients, if you start with really good stuff to begin with, you can make even better stuff. 23:25 Mm-hmm. So their vinegars are just deep and strong and sour and pungent and fruity, and you can kind of taste the underlying alcohol in them as well. 23:35 It's not just, oh, here's the sour juice that I'm adding to my salad dressing. Tell me, how did you get started in vinegar? I looked at the US grocery store shelf and thought, "We can do so much better." 23:49 Uh, so vinegar comes from alcohol. Your listeners may or may not know that. 23:53 Uh, and in the last 20 years, there's been this renaissance in American alcohol production, so think wines, California Finger Lakes ciders, and beer certainly in our neck of the woods in New England. 24:05 Um, and so the base ingredient to make great vinegars was out there. Uh, but yet American vinegars were mostly industrial-made vinegars that had one note. It was just acid. 24:15 And part of the problem was they weren't starting with good alcohols, and they were accelerating how vinegars are made. 24:23 So most vinegars on a grocery store shelf you're getting were made two hours to two days, hyper-filtered, diluted with water. 24:30 And that leads to a product that people treat as a commodity because, frankly, it's a commodity. How long does it take to make your vinegar? So our... It depends on the type of vinegar. 24:39 We use five alcohols, and it's gonna be about two months of fermentation using the drip machines, uh, that we created. 24:47 And then from an barrel aging, all of our vinegars are barrel aged, it's going to be a minimum of four months in 25 gallon, uh, wood barrels. 24:55 And then some of our vinegars, like sherry, which has a very high acid level, our California sherry, uh, they'll spend a year in wood. Wow. Yeah. That's a long time to wait- Yes... before you get your products to market. 25:07 That's right. That's right. But the good thing is vinegar doesn't spoil, so it only gets better with age. Yeah. Uh, and you're using some old machines? Yeah. I mean, they're new old machines. So, uh, we're... 25:19 Our method of making vinegar was retro cool in 1823 when it was developed, and it's called the German or the drip method. 25:27 Uh, and at the time, it was a big innovation over just letting stuff sit in a barrel and hoping it turned. 25:33 Uh, in the early 1900s, a new method of making vinegar started coming out, and its primary benefits were economic. 25:41 So it was really fast to make, and it was cheaper to make, uh, so most commercial vinegar makers adopted that as a method. Uh, we had to go back and rebuild the machines. 25:53 So we got the e- original etchings and designs, and partnered with two universities, first Boston University, then the University of Maine, and we rebuilt, out of stainless steel, the machines that were originally designed in 1823. 26:08 A lot of people have probably been raised on average vinegars- Yep... supermarket vinegars. What... Like, taste-wise, what is the difference? How do you know you're tasting really good vinegar- Yeah... 26:19 versus a regular vinegar when you're just sort of used to if it's sour- Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah... um, it must be vinegar. No, fair enough. 26:27 So, uh, I think it ends up being a bit of a revelation to people who taste our vinegars that they can taste the underlying alcohol. 26:34 And I don't mean that from an alcoholic perspective, because the way vinegar is made, alcohol levels go down as acid goes up. Like, so the bacteria are converting the alcohol into acetic acid. 26:45 But if you're using a good quality alcohol, you will end up with those layers of flavor, and that I would say is probably the biggest difference between commercially industrial vinegars and our vinegars. 26:57 You can actually get layers of flavor on the vinegar itself. So I was saying, you know, we have three malt vinegars. 27:04 Blindfolded, if I gave you each of the vinegars to taste, you would be able to pinpoint this came from a dark beer, this was an IPA. 27:14 So the underlying flavors and the layers of flavors beyond the one acid note, uh, is really important and a key difference just from a flavor perspective. 27:25 So, like, these, these guys are very serious about what so many of us have come to think of as just, you know, your average everyday ingredient that you just happen to, you know, pour in whenever you happen to need it. 27:38 [laughs] And the sherry vinegar, oh my God, that's like- I'm sold... I just wanna drink, I just wanna drink the sherry vinegar- I'm-... just straight all the time. It's so- I love a good sherry vinegar. It's so useful. 27:50 It's great. I love it with tomatoes. I feel like sherry vinegar- Mm-hmm... is the ideal thing for tomatoes, 'cause it just has this kind of spicy, rough, hearty richness- Mm... 28:00 to it that, uh, uh, plays off the acidity in the tomatoes. They just really go together well. Mm. Now I'm hungry. That's my go-to. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, man. [laughs] Good vinegar is, is can be hard to come by. 28:12 That's really cool. It is. 28:14 Well, I gotta say, one of the big trends that I saw, and it's been going on for a few years now, is protein and, like, sort of qwick- quick grab and go protein snacks, and like, you know, how we can we get more protein in things that you already eat. 28:28 Um, one, one great example, which I thought was really great, was Tofu GO, which is dougan or doufugan, like pressed, um, tofu that is, like, five spice flavored, and those were in, like, little to-go packs. 28:41 That is a great brand. Um, definitely check them out. 28:44 Um, another brand I thought, I, I thought was doing a really great job of selling, uh, you know, both like sort of like selling into a lot of these trends of, like, protein, and they're like they're using bone broth, and they're, like, talking about the collagen content and how that's good for your skin and bones and da, da, da, da. 29:01 It's actually a brand of meat sticks, which doesn't sound, you know, on the surface like the sexiest thing ever. You know, like- Mm. Meat sticks... s- yeah, Slim Jim, you think of that kind of thing. But, um, they're... 29:13 it's actually based from a small farm in Maine that has been going on for nine generations. 29:19 And you talk a lot about, like, or I hear a lot about, you know, the death of the family farm in America and how hard it is for generations to hold onto their land, um, and do the same kind of, um, uh, the same kind of farming that they've done for generations. 29:34 And I was really charmed by the story of John, John Arbuckle and his family of Singing Pastures Farm in Maine, and their solution to keeping the land and kind of 29:48 keeping the f- family business going was to create this, like, CPG product, which is these meat sticks using their pastured meat products, beef and pork. 29:57 And, um, you can tell from my interview with John, he didn't want to, you know, he didn't wanna poo-poo the, his previous generations, like his father and so forth, for taking the farm in a dirf- different direction of, like, conventional, um, before he took over. 30:12 But it sounds like that's, that's where the farm was going, and it was sort of starting to, to fail a little bit until he 30:20 He came on and, um, brought it back to a sort of more old-fashioned regenerative pastured, uh, farming operation. 30:28 And as like, you know, as, as a way to kind of get beyond like the crazy competition of, of meat nowadays, which is really tough. It's tough to be a small farmer of meat. 30:42 Um, they're selling this CPG snack, which is meat sticks, and they were delicious. So let's hear a little bit more from him. So for starters, I'll say that my son is the 10th generation of our family to farm in America. 30:54 We'll celebrate our 300th consecutive year in 2032. And when we took over and started doing everything the natural way, um, it was a big change on our farm. 31:05 So at this point in time, we're doing everything with rotational grazing. That means that only 2% of the farm has animals on... has farm animals on it. That leaves 98% of the farm for the wildlife. 31:19 We keep on rotationally grazing so the animals move all around. They never hit any area too hard in one spot. And, um, it's so exciting to me that we called it Singing Pastures Farm. 31:31 And Singing Pastures basically means that the coyotes, and the great horned owls, and the bullfrogs, and the crickets, all of those things keep on singing. 31:42 And, um, I'm so happy that we've given them the opportunity to express their unique, unique lives without harming them. You can really hear them just like singing every day. 31:51 When we sit on the front porch at night, we could probably hear five or six different kinds of wildlife- Good dog... at any, any given night. Okay. Yeah. And it's not just like little things like crickets. 32:03 It's like big things. Like we can hear, you know, red far- foxes barking. Huh. We can hear coyotes howling. We can hear like several different species of frog. 32:14 Um, we hear great horned owls, and barn owls, and screech owls. We hear ospreys. We hear, um, bald eagles and red-tailed hawks making their cries in the daytime. 32:26 Uh, there's, there's so much, and that's what, you know, Rachel Carson's book, Silent Spring, you know, was about when the, when everything goes quiet. And we're very happy to say that on our farm it is the opposite. 32:38 It is a loud, beautiful symphony of wildness. Right. It's not exactly a concentrated animal feedlot situation. No, we're the opposite of that. We're the opposite of that. 32:49 You know, our, our version has always been to make, um, you know, CAFOs obsolete. And you said your family changed over to the natural way of farming. Um- Yeah... how did that happen? 32:59 So my father was the eighth generation. Right. And, um, they did not have the same, um, availability of knowledge, um, regarding sustainability that we have today. Right. 33:13 So with the best of intentions and the best, um, the most love in his heart, he still did everything the conventional way. Yeah. 33:22 And I never fault him for that because just like there are food deserts in the world, there's also information deserts. Yeah. And you know, my father grew up in an information desert, you know, regarding sustainability. 33:34 When I took over, we moved all of the pigs out of the pig barns, you know, and that meant that we had to change the genetics. We had to get an old-fashioned breed of pigs that could live outdoors. 33:45 And then we started rotationally grazing them so they didn't spend too much time in one spot. 33:51 And all of that put together meant that it no longer made sense to sell pigs to, um, the sale barn, you know, the commodity style, very anonymous way of selling animals. 34:02 And then we decided, well, what we should really do is we should communicate our story and start our own brand. And that's what we're doing now. 34:12 What really makes us unique is that we're naturally fermented, and the natural fermentation process is more like changing, um, milk into yogurt. Oh, wow. You know, it's a non-chemical process. It's a biological process. 34:25 So we make our product shelf stable using fermentation. It's like Slim Jim. [laughs] Uh, and it's also we're the first to market to get bone broth and collagen into our sticks. Oh, okay. 34:38 So all that puts, comes together to make a really delicious stick that, um, is just really good for you. And so I, you know, we, we can all look at these labels and say like, "Oh, it's pastured. 34:51 Oh, it's packed with bone broth and all that stuff," and it's like all this all just marketing stuff. But it sounds like, you know, they're just... this is how this one farm has figured out how to- Hmm... 35:00 keep, keep going and, uh, keep raising their animals. 35:05 And I, I just remember like a lot of the ethos back in the day of like the Unfancy Food Show is about how these huge conglomerates at the Fancy Food Show were destroying the earth and like making products in a really unethical way. 35:18 And, um, that's clearly, you know... There's small companies, there's companies of all size at the Fancy Food Show nowadays. It felt like mostly small and indie companies. Even- Hmm... 35:29 even the ones that were in really fancy expensive booths, it didn't feel like there was, you know, a big, uh, you know, Archer-Daniels-Midland kind of component to this thing or- Right... 35:39 you know, Ralston Purina and Nestle. It didn't, I didn't... 35:43 Maybe they were there, but I didn't really- Well, you gotta realize, unless they have something new to bring to the market, they don't really need to sell their product. They, everybody knows it already. 35:51 Yeah, that's true. Yeah, so that's great. So it's Fancy Food Show is small brands. I mean, it doesn't feel like people ruining the world. 35:58 It feels like people trying to, to preserve family farms, preser- preserve old flour mills, and come up with... cool new ways of presenting the foods that they love to bigger and bigger audiences. 36:12 Right, finding holes in the market, um, which leads me to one of my, my final, um, sort of shout-out vendor from this last year, was also a very new company called Bari. 36:24 And, uh, the very young-seeming, uh, founders, uh, who I spoke with, they wanted to create a baby food that was specifically for the Asian market, because they just didn't see any baby foods. 36:36 Like, you know the squeezy packs and like- Oh, yes... you know, the purees and y- you know what I'm talking about. Mm-hmm. None of those really spoke to their culture. They're like, "Where's the rice?" 36:47 You know, all these things that are just, um, so deeply embedded in Asian cultures, um, and the flavors too, they want to like, you know, blend rice and, like, sweet potatoes and all these nutritional things that they know are, are, like, essential to, um, baby foods as far as they know. 37:04 Um, but it wasn't like they also wanted the convenience that the modern sort of Asian American and, and all Americans, uh, kind of crave, um, busy parents, you know, who work. So they wanted to create, uh, an Asian... 37:19 They call it America's first Asian baby food brand. Okay, so my name is Swan. 37:23 So it's a Korean name, uh, pronounced like the bird swan, and it actually has, like, the Chinese character behind it, which means to be, like, comfortable, so. 37:31 But I, I guess I'm not really trying to be comfortable by starting a business. [laughs] Um, Bari means a couple things, but the number one thing is there's a expression in Korean called Bari Bari. 37:42 It kind of describes a way, you know, when you go to your grandma's house, she packs you with, like, snacks every 20 minutes. You're overstuffed. 37:50 Um, how, you know, like, your parents would pack your lunchboxes with all the nice things. Uh, it describes, like, that overpacking-ness, uh, and we're just trying to give the best to the babies. 38:00 And the goal here is to really help diversify kids' palates, because a lot of baby foods nowadays are based off of fruits and veggies, but this is gonna help introduce them to different kinds of flavors. 38:09 But not only flavors, but textures too. As you can see here, it comes in different textures, and it isn't just the smooth puree that kids typically eat. Just a little bit of background on, like, how we got our start. 38:19 So we, my sister is my co-founder, and she was raising our first kid in the US, and was told by the pediatrician to not feed baby rice 'cause of safety issues, which became, like, a big thing couple years ago with, like, product recalls and, you know, some results finding that 95% of some products on shelf are actually dangerous for kids to have. 38:38 Yeah, so we see a lot of rice being pulled off of shelf because of safety reasons like that, but as Asians, we eat rice every day, every meal almost, and so we wanted to find a way to really reintroduce rice in a safe way and also introduce Asian flavors in a more approachable way for babies as well. 38:56 So with those two, um, kind of missions in mind, we moved back to South Korea, look for, you know, how Asia ra- raises, um, their babies with rice, with safety standards that, you know, meet their needs. 39:07 And then so we manufacture and source everything from South Korea, um, to meet that safety barrier and also be as authentic as possible, um, while, you know, trying to be approachable also in the US market. 39:19 So I guess these are sort of like rice porridges, right? That's correct, yeah. Rice is, like, our core ingredient for the porridges, and even the snacks and the puffs and teethers. 39:27 Rice is the fundamental, like, ingredient that we work with. Yeah. It's been described even as a food tech company. Yes. 39:34 Yeah, so we are not just, like, you know, brand with, like, a manufacturer that, you know, does everything for us, but we, you know, invested even almost, like, a million dollars into the R&D of how can we make rice safer from, like, the harvesting stages to the processing and the packaging. 39:50 So we are truly, um, rooted in, like, making rice safer, starting with baby food. But, uh, so what... How does it taste? I mean, it- Okay... if you were a baby, would you like it? I mean, so this one was hard to sample. 40:01 I don't think I actually tasted it. Um- [laughs] I, I, I don't actually [laughs] I don't actually sample most... I don't know how many, like... That's a good question. Like, do parents usually sample baby food? 40:14 Um, maybe they should. Maybe I should've, 'cause it sounded pretty good. There's, like, you know, Japanese curry flavor- Mm... with all these different rice and vegetables and, like, chicken blended up. 40:23 You know, as, as I was saying to you and Peter, um, our other founder here, I was like you gotta really choose how to, how to best utilize your stomach capacity when you're at the Fancy Food Show. 40:35 You don't wanna fill up on breads. You wanna taste as many things as possible, so I skipped that one. [laughs] I mean, they sound delicious to me. I am a big fan of, you know, congee with sweet potato in it. Mm-hmm. 40:47 That's just, like- Mm-hmm... a basic kinda thing to cook, and if I could get that- Yeah. 40:51 I mean, actually, if, if we could've gotten that in a little package pouch when my kids were little, we probably would've gotten that. They would've loved it. 100%. I would hope they would've loved it. Right? 41:00 We would've loved feeding it to them. Yeah. Because it's a pain to have to cook and then pro- uh, I don't, I don't know, keep it fresh, and then you're like, "Is it old? I don't know." Yeah. 41:07 "It's been in the fridge for how long?" Yeah, so. And at some point you get tired of feeding your kids the same old pouches of apples and potatoes- Mm-hmm... apples and potatoes, apples and potatoes. Ugh. It's too sweet. 41:15 Most of, like, the shelves'- Mm... baby foods I see in pouches is just, like, fruit punch, like, in a [laughs] puree. Yeah. That's great. [upbeat music] I do wanna... 41:27 I gotta tell you about this one, one food brand that I tried that was not old school and traditional. It wasn't vinegar. It wasn't flour. [laughs] Okay. This was, uh, a salumi maker, 41:40 uh, out of Ch- Chicago called Tempesta. Hmm. So salumi is, you know, salamis, hams, Italian-style cured meats. And they were making this really cool thing that I had never seen it anywhere before. 41:54 Um, I've never seen anyone else make it. I haven't seen it in, uh, delis and provision stores in New York. So, uh, Cathy, do you know what 'Nduja is? I didn't know how to pronounce it, but I know it's spelled... 42:07 Yeah, yeah. I know, it's like a paste, and it's, like, spiced, um, with, like, I think African hot peppers, and- Yeah... it's just, yeah. Yummy. Spicy Calabrian meat paste. Mm-hmm. 42:19 And you know what, uh, mortadella is, right? I love it, mortadella. Yes. Yeah, so the classic bologna, bologna bologna. Um, so these guys at Tempesta are making something that they call Nduja-della. Ooh. 42:35 N- nduja is a spreadable spice salami. My ancestor create over 250 years ago in a small villages in a small area for, for surviving. And it's a, a blend of, uh, back fat, lean, and peppers, and salt. 42:52 And, uh, and create a, like a cre- a cream, uh, product. Very creamy. Can be usable on cracker, some pasta, on pizza, meatball. More, more chef idea have, they can produce. 43:05 The regular salami, you know, you only can do one thing. And mortadella is the typical bologna salami. So we produce both, and, um, my son had the idea to blend them. 43:18 So, and the, and come out, uh, a, a product that, uh, nobody expect, and so it, it went, uh, very viral. It can be used on top of the pizza, sandwich. 43:29 So and people love to see new quality product in the market, you know? You know, not the usual boring thing, you know? Hmm. Is it sliceable, or is it spreadable? It is sliceable. Ooh, I like that. 43:40 So it looks like mortadella- Nice... but fiery orange. Nice. And it tastes like both of them together. [laughs] Those are two of my absolute favorite Italian meat products. And- Amazing... 43:52 you, you get that, that richness and that, um, that supple quality of the mortadella, the way it folds and that textural thing. Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. And then you also get this rich, slightly sour, spicy- Oh... 44:07 deeply porky thing from the nduja all together, all in one. I mean, this is just, like, a genius product. I don't know why- [laughs]... 44:14 uh, either somebody didn't make it before or I didn't see it before, but I mean, this is, this is incredible stuff. Spicy, spicy mortadella. Yeah, why not? Spicy mortadella. 44:23 No, it's, we don't even have to call it spicy mortadella. It's nduja-della. It's... Sorry, sorry. [laughs] Just get used to saying that, nduja-della. Say it with me. Nduja-della. Nduja-della. There you go. Great. 44:34 This is- [laughs]... this is, this is genius stuff. It is. And, uh, they're making it out in Chicago, and I figure- So cool... 44:41 I'm gonna try and get my hands on some or persuade some shops in my neighborhood to start carrying it. Or, I mean, I wouldn't be surprised if someone started copying them and ripping them off and doing the same thing. 44:52 Which- Yeah... you know, is unfortunate, but it's also such a brilliant kind of creation that, uh, everybody should be making and eating this stuff. That's really cool. 45:03 I think that, yeah, American charcuterie-making too has really shown up in the last several years. There's a bunch of great ones, like Olympia Provisions out of Washington. 45:12 And, and, yeah, I, I got to sample a lot- Yeah... you know, over the years, so it's, yeah, it's exciting space. 45:19 Do you have a, in all the hours that we spent at the Fancy Food Show, was there one single bite that struck you as- Ooh... your absolute favorite? Ooh, gosh. This is tough. I mean, it's hard to say no. 45:36 I mean, it's hard to top something like, like Mimi Cheng's were, like, shilling dumplings that were pan-fried on, like, little spoons. But, like, I've had that before, so what is the more interesting bite I've had? Oh. 45:51 No. Did we have, like, a yuzu popsicle, or was that just me? I- I think that might've been just you. Let me look at my photos. Hold on. [laughs] What was your favorite bite? 46:03 There was a Korean food vendor, and they were making this crab dish called ganjang gejang, which is raw crabs- Oh, wow... marinated in soy sauce and other stuff. 46:16 And it's a consumer packaged good, so they were making this, and then they freeze it, and so they're selling it in frozen packages, probably in stuff like H Mart and some specialty grocery stores, you know- Hmm... 46:28 around the country and around the world. 46:30 But, oh, man, I just, I love that flavor and that texture, that, that feeling of sucking this essentially raw, slightly pickled cabbage out of its sh- uh, not cabbage, crab, out of its shell. [laughs] Cabbage. 46:46 Nothing, nothing... I love, love sucking cabbage out of its shell. [laughs] No. I mean, it's just, it, it, it's such a decadent kind of thing- Mm-hmm... to be eating crab that way. It is just wonderful. 46:57 And also, I have, you know, very affectionate memories of this thing, because this dish- Mm-hmm... not the one at the Fancy Food Show, but this dish is partly how I met my wife many, many, many years ago. Raw crab. 47:11 We were... Raw crab. We- Ah... I, I met her because a bunch of us who all went to college together, we'd graduated, we'd all moved to New York, and we all went out to dinner in Koreatown at a restaurant called Wonjo. 47:22 And, uh, I only knew one of the people there, and there was this woman, Jean Liu, uh, who, uh, was gorgeous and had a wonderful smile, and was really excited about everything she ate, including- [laughs]... 47:36 the banchan, you know, small plate dish of raw marinated crab that was on the table. Nice. And she just went at it, and I thought, "Oh, all right. This is, this is someone- [laughs]... I should get to know. 47:47 Someone who seems to enjoy eating unusual things here in New York City." And, uh, yeah, I asked her out not long after that, and we have now been together- Aw... for 28 years. 47:59 You know, food helps you find your people, doesn't it? Yeah, absolutely. So. Amazing. Yeah. Aw, that's, that's a great dish for you, then. Yeah. I will eat that anywhere, anytime. [laughs] It's my green eggs and ham. 48:12 Amazing. Well, I, okay, so my favorite bites, I had so many great bites. I think, uh, the Chen's potato dumpling was pretty hard to top as well. I really liked tasting a lot of sauces. 48:23 So one new brand, which is by someone who is very well known in the food world, it's Marcus Samuelsson, and he recently came out with a line of sauces called MERCATO by Marcus. 48:35 And what I love about these sauces that, that they're like, there's one that's called like Curry Delish, and it could be a simmer sauce or it could be like a little topping, it could be a dip, it could be anything. 48:47 Um, and then he has one called Island Vibes, and it's, it's again, it's like Caribbean spices, but then there's like green chili, there's cilantro mixed in there, so it's like a creamy, like avocado green color sauce. 49:01 And you can like pour it over like grilled chicken or something like that that you just like put on the barbecue. And so I, yeah, I just, I really like that one a lot- Well-... 49:10 'cause that was like really refreshing and super bright. All-purpose flavor. Yeah. Indian... Island Vibes, that one, simmer sauce. Yeah. What is that made with? Do you know? Uh, green stuff, like herbs- [laughs]... 49:23 herbs. Uh, you know, I, I didn't get a picture of the ingredient list, but I'm sure you can check out MERCATO by Marcus and find out more. I will. This is great. This is so much fun. I wish, uh- Good... 49:36 the Fancy Food Show would take place, maybe not, maybe not every month, but, uh, I guess it does pl- take place twice a year, so maybe we will check out the winter version. Twice a year? Yeah, there's a winter. 49:47 Oh, there's a small winter. I think that's- Yeah... a smaller version, though. But- Well, that sounds more manageable. [laughs] Yeah. And then- Uh, and that's in San Francisco in 2027, so- Right. Okay. All right... 49:57 maybe we'll find a way to get out there and see if there's, if, do they eat different- If we're ready for it... do they eat different foods in California? Probably, yeah. 50:07 [laughs] [upbeat music] Okay, that's it for Shut Up and Eat. Be sure to subscribe to the podcast and check out our newsletter and killer merch at shutupandeat.com. That's Shut Up and Eat, not Shut Up and Eat. 50:24 This episode was edited and produced by Matt Herrero at H-Industries. Our executive producer is Peter Chang. Graphic design by Matt Timms, and our theme song is Birthday Cake by Chipo Matto. Okay. 50:38 Till next time, shut up and eat, everybody. No, you shut up and eat. No, you shut up and eat. Okay, thanks. I will. You know my love is sweet
