The Food Show: Auckland 2012

Every year I complain about how much The Food Show costs, and every year I go anyway.  The thing is, despite having to pay for the privilege of being advertised at, having to walk a long way to get there (or spending $6 to park closer), and having to push your way through throngs of people, there's just something about the promise of delicious food samples, interesting products and cooking demos all under one roof.

While you may have come across many show items before at a gourmet food store or local market, if not a supermarket, the Food Show also lets you watch your favourite New Zealand celebrity chef in action, taste test something you wouldn't normally buy, and get a discount on products you already know you like.  Theoretically, you have a chance to chat to the local producers as well, but I didn't feel comfortable doing this, especially at popular stalls where everyone is trying to get to the food and you just have to dive in and out quickly to avoid holding everyone up.

Highlights

Going through the hundreds of stalls, you start to glaze over and stop really paying attention to everything on offer.  Here are some things that stood out for us though.

• Cultured butter from Lewis Road Creamery. Actually, I discovered these guys a little while ago, and already knew their butter was an excellent local version of my previous favourite butter Lurpak (which I have been known to eat thick slices of on bread, as if it were cheese).  The main reason for us coming to the Food Show was so we could sample Lewis Road's artisan butter without going to a high-end restaurant.  It's made from 100% Jersey cow milk, unlike their supermarket premium butters, which are just made from the usual Fonterra mix.  Unfortunately, I wasn't really able to taste the difference, mainly because the bread they served the butters on was so flavourful.

Butter sculptures advertising Lewis Road Creamery.

• Curried lamb pies from Leelands.  You might have to wait a bit before they are heated through, but they are oh-so-delicious!  It's a pity we have no idea where you would be able to buy one of these after the Food Show, but here's a list of Auckland's best pies.
• Festivals, or Jamacian deep fried corn bread from West Indies Spice Traders.  These hot and tasty delights with a crunchy crust were only there to help sell the sauces, but they really stole the show for us.  Freshly shaped and fried at the back of the stall, they are apparently made from equal amounts of corn meal and plain white flour, and mixed with a bit of sugar, milk and eggs.  The man I spoke to claimed the recipe was on their website, but I couldn't find it.  Their stall also stood out for generating a lot of smoke from cooking their chicken on the side.

The sauces are the things for sale, but it was the corn bread from the man in the background that blew me away.

• The artisan alley, set up with wooden stalls and great food, including fresh oysters from Mahurangi Oysters (only $2 each!), fennel sausages and olive oil from Salumeria Fontana, and crisp greens from The Fresh Grower.
• Discounts on quality ingredients, for instance $6.50 for 1kg of fresh clams from Southern Clams, $10 for a halloumi and feta combo from Zany Zeus, and $15 for 1kg of my favourite peanut butter from Pic's Really Good Peanut Butter.

Tips

Here are some suggestions on how to enjoy the Food Show as much as possible.

• Work out your schedule beforehand.  Make sure you see all the cooking demonstrations that you want to see, and visit all the stalls you particularly care about.
• Don't turn up starving hungry.  You want to be able to be discerning in what you try, not stuff yourself full of the first packet biscuits or bread and dips that you see.
• Hold on to your largest cup.  Walking around can be thirsty work. You may want to help yourself to some water and discover that every dispenser has run out of cups.
• Bring cash. Queuing at the ATM is not a particularly fun activity.  You have plenty of opportunity for queues already.
• Bring a large bag, maybe even one of those tow-along ones on wheels.  There are some good offers at the show.  You won't be able to take full advantage of them if you are unable to carry the products out with you. Drinks and bottled sauces start feeling uncomfortably heavy, and you might also want a special holder for the purchases you want to keep cold (butter, clams, icecream).
• Be nice to others.  In those mad crowds, it's easy to bump into somebody by mistake, or get impatient at someone loitering in front of a stall.  Just be polite and laid back about it.  Everyone is here to have a good time.
• Be careful what you eat.  Just because something is free doesn't mean you should have it. By all means give items the benefit of the doubt, but you could end up feeling sickly from too much sugar or alcohol, or even, as one member of our party found, mild food poisoning.

The Food Show: Auckland 2011

I went to the Food Show at the ASB Showgrounds in the weekend.  I hadn't been planning to go, as past experience told me that I would be paying too much money for the pleasure of subjecting myself to a lot of queues and advertising.  However, I discovered that I had won free tickets from an online restaurant review site, and who am I to say no to a freebie?  I figured that if I went to some cooking demonstrations rather than just wandering around the various stalls, it would feel more like a worthwhile activity.

I had planned to go to every single cooking session (!), but after two of them, I decided my weekend was more valuable than that.  Recipes and cooking tips can be had from a gazillion websites, and while I learnt some new things (did you know you can cure raw salmon by packing it in grated beetroot and copious amount of salt and sugar for a day or two?), I didn't really see myself making anything from the sessions.  For goodness sake, Anabelle White didn't even cook in her demo.  She just told funny stories and plugged her book and other products for sale, while her assistant Nancy did everything in the background without saying a word.

Cooking demonstration by Richard Till

I did take something wonderful away from Richard Till's demo though, quite literally.  By asking questions, I was awarded with some manuka smoked eggs from the NZ Manuka Eggs Company.  That you can smoke eggs is quite new to me, even though I have come across many types of flavoured eggs already, from Chinese salted eggs, to tea eggs, to century eggs.  While fascinating, I probably would not have bought these amazing looking inventions with their blackened tops ($5 for 6 at the show), simply because there were so many other products for sale, and it was unlikely that I would ever crave smoked eggs, or know where to buy them from once the show had ended.  So thank you, Mr. Till, for letting me taste the subtle flavour of these cold-smoked eggs at leisure in my own home, even though it seemed awfully wasteful of you to have thrown the whites away when you used the yolks for your aioli.  I would have appreciated having had a taste of said aioli to see if I could discern any smoky flavour, but I guess there is never enough for food to go around after a demo, so you might as well not start offering samples.

My award for asking questions

The manuka smoked eggs had blackened tops

The demonstrations at the baking theatre, in contrast, were less well attended (perhaps because seating was not available), more informal (you didn't get told off for leaving halfway), and also more interesting.  Sean Armstrong not only took us through the making of bread, but also passed around bits of dough which were at the right consistency, for us to squeeze, stretch and learn from.  Instead of a household oven, he and his assistants churned out a great number of loaves from a commercial setup, which in itself was interesting to be able to see.

Maybe I've talked myself around to the viewpoint that the show is worth the $25 entrance fee.  If you were not organised enough to attend demonstrations though, you would have to console yourself with trying to eat your money's worth in free samples from the various stalls. This is only a good idea if you have the self control not to eat too much of the supermarket biscuits and bread-and-dips type offerings, and instead save room for the more gourmet items, the meats and cheeses (and wines, if you are that way inclined, which I generally am not... but I recommend the Japanese plum wine!).

One of my gripes is that there were not so many things that were new and exciting.  Not only are Chop Chop Chicken and Easiyo products things that I have already seen in the supermarket, but why would I want to waste my calories tasting them, even if they were free (which they were)?  Seriously, a huge stall for Pam's products?  What's with all these packet soups and instant meals?  And Pic's Peanut Butter may be good, but I already knew that from trying it at the La Cigale French Style Market.

Other stalls served samples that tasted amazing, such as the paw paw salad from True Pacific, a programme being driven by the Pacific Cooperation Foundation.  They didn't have a shop, though, and couldn't tell me where I could buy their yummy food!  What's the point of raising my awareness if my only source of the item is at the Food Show?

I guess I am being a bit harsh.  There are definitely reasons for checking out the Food Show.  Many stalls offered good discounts for their wares.  For instance, the delicious Native Infusions drinks, which I first came across at Serafin, were available at $1 a bottle, or $3.50 for four.  That's a third of the usual price at New World.  I would have gone on a shopping binge if I had had a shopping cart, or stronger arm muscles.

Delicious drinks, at a third of the retail price at a supermarket

Perhaps my favourite stall of the day was at the Farro Fresh booth, where Neil Willman of The New Zealand Cheese School showed us how to make halloumi in less than 10 minutes.  I was unsure about his choice of Chux cloths for use as cheesecloth, as I have washed my dishes with those before and seen how the colours came out of them, but his halloumi was indeed delicious (yes, we got to taste it).  Unfortunately, we missed his other demonstration, in which he claimed to have made mozzarella in under a minute.

All in all, I think the Food Show can be worth a visit, but you have to put up with endless amounts of blatant advertising and borings bits before you find some good stuff.  And you need to be at the right place at the right time.  If patience is your virtue, if you love throngs of people, free samples and bargain hunting, then this show is for you.