New foods and drinks from this year’s Americas Food and Beverage Show. Sunny Fraser talks with Linda Gassenheimer about her favorite finds to spice up our autumn. Loved the Hot N Saucy Hot Sauce, Ceimaya Honey Desert Sauce and Toma Beverage Co award-winning, lower sodium, premium Bloody Mary Mix a few she mentions.
Food, News & Views with Linda Gassenheimer
Food, News & Views, Ep 240: Americas Food and Beverage Show Special!
(upbeat music) - Hi, I'm Linda Gassenheimer, and welcome to Food News and Views. Glad to have you joining us. Do you look for new foods at the market? I'd like to spice up my meals with some new flavors or ideas. So what are some of the new trends and foods that we'll be seeing this year? We have some answers. Wine and food writer, Sunny Fraser, attended the American's food and beverage show in Miami, and she has her favorite finds to share with us. So welcome, Sunny Fraser. - Hi, Linda, thanks for having me. - My pleasure. I want to hear all about these new foods. First of all, tell us a little bit about the show. What is it? - Well, so it's basically the America's Food and Bad of Average Show Show cases of food products from the Americas, so North America and South America. And it's a really large show. I would call it maybe football field or so long. So it's a lot of food and dreams. - Very big, but when I was, I was surprised that there were also foods from other countries there. - Right. - As well, so they, whatever. (laughs) It's difficult, difficult, all right. So quickly, what are some of the food trends you noticed? - I noticed a lot of tea products made in new and interesting ways, like tea energy drinks and tea with terpenes, things like that. - Which is a terpene? I'm thinking terpen time. What is terpene? (laughs) - Terpene is an aromatic compound found in many plants, but most people associate it with cannabis. So when you have that distinct smell of like marijuana, that would be the terpene. And so they're putting that now into tea. And I actually saw it in wine as well. So, but it doesn't have any psychoactive properties. It's just more of the scent and I think scent is flavor. So I think when people smell it, they're also maybe tasting it. - And where can we find this tea? - Well, I'll have to get to that when I get to some of the top finds, but those were just some of the trends that I saw. - I love that. - All right, wonderful. Okay, so we'll have to wait for that. Well, then therefore let's go into some of the products. Go ahead. - Okay, so some of the products, one of my favorite products was this, and I featured them last year in the 2023 top finds, which was Samaya Honey, and that's spelled C-E-I-M-A-Y-A. Samaya Honey, it's a Mexican honey. And this year they had a new product out. So they have a really cool line of honeys that are unfiltered. So they're very creamy, they're very aromatic. And they also have bee pollen, and they also have a really cool honeycomb. But the one that I thought, this new product that they didn't have last year, it was made from the Melaponia beachy bees, which are a sacred-- - That's a type of bee? - It's a type of bee. - Melaponia, okay. - And the cool thing about this bee is that this bee doesn't have a stinger. So it's a honey bee without a stinger, and it produces this very-- - Which really makes it a honey of a bee, huh? - Exactly. I couldn't help myself, I'm sorry. (laughing) - Exactly, but this one was really cool because it had a different viscosity than regular honey. It wasn't as thick, it was more syrupy, like a maple syrup. So it was like something you could pour on pancakes, and it's very cool floral and citrus notes to it. But I thought it was very cool, and it has a lot of health properties, antibacterial, antioxidant, anti-inflammatory properties as well. So, and you can find this actually at Amazon for most of their products. I'm gonna say range, they're in about $23.95 for each of their products, but their products are so cool, and they're such a great gift or a host gift to give to somebody who really enjoys food products, like cool food products. - Wonderful, okay. What else are we gonna have? We've got some tea, we've got some honey. (laughing) - Sure, that makes it quite nice, go ahead. - Exactly. Hot and saucy, hot sauce, and that's hot in, like the letter in, saucy, hot sauce. Now, this one's Oprah approved. So apparently it made-- - Oh, I'm not there for. (laughing) - Apparently it made her list for 20, 23. But what's really cool about this hot sauce is it's using really interesting vegetables and spices. So what stopped me in my tracks as I was walking by was there was this sauce called Coloreds and Ghost. So it was colored greens and ghost peppers, but then they had these other cool ones. So once I stopped, I had to taste their entire lineup, which was they had garlic and pepper and cini, so that sort of Greek spicy pepper. They had carrot and chipotle. Then they had beet and Fresno chilies. And then they had one that was black garlic and peri peri, which is that African like hot pepper. So their hot sauces were just so interesting and cool. I'd never seen hot sauces like this. They're very inventive, very reimagined. And it's a chef driven hot sauce. So the female that owns the company, she was a chef and she decided to make her own line of hot sauces. And those also could be purchased on Amazon for around $10 a bottle or her website, which is hotinsaucy.co. - Okay, and what's next? - So there's Dakota Don's Artisan Waffles. And what's cool about this was not only was this an absolutely delicious waffle, Don worked all his life and when he decided to retire, all of his friends had he had heard from them, you must market this waffle, your waffle mix. So he decided to market his waffle mix, which is an all-natural waffle mix that makes these really soft on the inside, crispy on the outside waffles. They call it a remarkably better waffle and that's sort of motto and I think it's actually true. It was the best waffle I ever tasted. But what's really cool about this was that he decided to make this a purpose-driven business. So I guess he was retired and doing fine and didn't need the extra money. So he decided that all the proceeds, every bit of the proceeds is gonna go to charity. And so he doesn't rate all of it. So that I thought was really, really cool. - Certainly is you don't find that these days for the most. - No, not at all, so you can find his stuff at his website, artisanwaffles.com for $9.99 a box. And then the next really cool thing I found was Miracle Noodle, which these were fascinating. They were made with egg whites and if they had spaghetti noodles and they also had other plant-based noodles made out of conjack and those were actually, both of them were ready to eat, which was great. - May I have conjack? - Yeah, so conjack is an Asian yam. - Okay, it's a type of yam. Well, I have to say that I saw that at the show as well and took some home and I was just amazed. The noodles were so, you don't have to cook them. They're ready to go. And they're white because they're made with egg whites. And I found them very delicious. You just add some sauce and you're done. - Exactly, and obviously you get a higher, you get a high protein noodle that's much healthier, lower in calorie. And for people who have dietary restrictions, gluten-free, wheat-free, corn-free, all of that stuff and certified non-GMO, which is really cool. So, and I found them to be a very neutral noodle that you could really eat with a lot of things. - With anything, right. And where can we find that? - So I was told they have about 25,000 different locations from Whole Foods to Sprouts to Costco to Walmart and also Amazon or their website, miraclenoodle.com. And they're about $5 each for a pack, but they're sold in multi-packs. So, you know, if somebody's ordering it, I think they have to be prepared to, I think purchase like maybe six out of time. - Sorry. - Right, that'd be easily eaten up. - Exactly. - My waffles and my noodles must next. - So the Wild Hibiscus Flower Company, they're making an all-natural butterfly pea flower, which is really popular with mixologists right now. It, when you put this pea flower into water, it turns bright blue, like a royal blue. And so you can have, you know, beautiful cocktails that are all natural, but blue, 'cause usually when you see that color blue, you're like, oh, they put artificial colors in it. And you can also use it for recipes like frosting for cakes and cookies, or even if you wanna make those noodles, if you're making noodles. - You're like, I had blue noodles instead of white ones. - Exactly. Which might be fun for kids. And so they have that, and they also have a really cool hibiscus flower products where they have hibiscus flowers and syrup so that you can put them into like cocktails as a garnish, or they have the dehydrated hibiscus flower, which is beautiful. And they were actually stuffing them with goat cheese. So it was this beautiful flower, stuff with goat cheese. And when you taste it, it reminded you of like having sort of a cranberry flavor with goat cheese. It was really delicious. - Amazing, so to all from a flower, how interesting. Okay, where can we find this? - Yeah, so wild hibiscus flower company can be found on Amazon, $14.99 for a two pack of the, what they call B lore flower extract, which is the blue extract, or it's $14.99 for a jar of the hibiscus flowers and syrup. - Wow. - Okay, anything else? Are we drinking anything? - We are, but I'm gonna get to one more quick company, Elevation Gourmet. They are a all-natural ketchup-based product company. - Okay, all right. - And they're making ketchup with sugar, ketchup without sugar, sriracha ketchup, vindaloo ketchup, barbecue sauce, and bloody merry mix, but all of them are all natural, clean ingredients, and no high fructose corn syrup all made. If they're made with sugar, they're made with cane sugar. - Wow, okay, and what's the name of the ketchup again? Company? - Elevation gourmet. - Elevation gourmet. - So they can find these at Walmart. They have three packs of it for $17.99, or you can buy the entire variety that I mentioned for $22.99, so five for $22.99. - Okay. - So drinking, I found-- - I was wondering what we're gonna get to that. Go ahead. - I know, drinking, I found the coolest company, and that was Delta Dirt Distillery, and this is a-- - Delta Dirt? - Delta Dirt, that's-- - Okay, just wanna make sure. - Yeah, and so why it's called Delta Dirt is, it's from the Arkansas Delta, and so it's from the soils of the Arkansas Delta, and this one is what they call farmed a bottle, vodka, and farmed a bottled gin, and what I mean by that is they own their own farm, and they're growing sweet potatoes on the farm, and they're making a sweet potato and corn vodka. - Wow, that's unusual. - Yeah, so they're number four in the country. There's only three others that make sweet potato vodka, so they're the fourth to the sweet potato vodka. They're a family-owned, black-owned distillery in Arkansas, and they also have a tasting room there, and they have that is available for sale across the country at Reserve Bar. They have the vodka for $43.99, and they have their gin for $44.99 on Reserve Bar. - Okay. - So that's reservebar.com. - Go ahead. What else? Are we drinking something else? - Yeah, so we're drinking bees' water, so we're going back to the honey stuff. So this one is made, it's like a really delicious, refreshing water with the essence of honey, and they did this because they said that honey provides natural energy and natural antioxidant properties, so they made four different versions. One is they're simply classic honey water, which is a water that just has like this honey essence, so it's really refreshing and delicious, and they include vitamin C in it. And then they also have one called Golden Ginger Lemon with vitamin C in turmeric, and so that one kind of reminds you of a lemonade because it's sweetened with honey, and then they have native blueberry and tangy lemon with, I'm sorry, native blueberry, and that one is just sort of like a blueberry flavored honey water, and then they have the tangy lemon with vitamin C in turmeric, so the other one was actually, I'm sorry, Golden Ginger Lemon, so it was like a ginger lemonade, and the other one is just regular lemonade, so all of them were very delicious, very refreshing, and made with honey. - Wow, so alcohol and non-alcohol. - Yes, and this one you can get at beeswater, B-E-E-S, beeswater.com, they sell a 12 pack of it for $41.99, okay, anything else that you want to try? - Final find that I thought was cool 'cause we're going back to all these clean products and clean mixers, it was called Toma Beverage Company, Toma T-O-M-A, and it's award-winning lower sodium, premium bloody Mary mix, but it's made with both tomatoes and tomatillo, so not only is it lower sodium, but they've combined tomatoes and tomatillos, and then other clean ingredients just to make their versions of bloody Mary mix, which they have a mild, an original, an original actually means spicy, and then they have a horseradish version. - Great advice, as always. Night, I'm anxious to try all of these things at once, but what we'll be doing is I'm going to put all of these things you've mentioned on my website, that's dinnerinminist.com in case you've missed some of it, and we'll all go out to the stores and try to find some of these products. I'm glad you had a long walk, that was a long walk for you, it sounds like you were maybe adding a few calories to your walk. - I did, but when I left there, I had done 15,000 steps, so. - All right. - I checked to see how far I had walked inside of there, and I walked 15,000 steps, so. Anyway, one of the things I wanted to mention last was on the Toma Beverage is that if somebody wants it, it's drinktomah.com, so. - Okay, all right, yes. - And they can find them for a two pack, 32 ounces for $34 on their site. - Final piece of good information. Sunny Fraser, thank you so much for joining us, and for sharing all this information. So where can we reach you, or find out more about your visit to the show? - You can reach me at sunny on scene, on Instagram, Facebook, all of the social platforms, that's S-U-N-N-Y-O-N-S-C-E-N-E, or sunny on scene. - Okay, well, you can listen to my Food News and Views podcast on all major sites, all my past podcasts, including Apple, Spotify, and Amazon Music. All you need to do is Google Food News and Views podcast. I'm Linda Gassenheimer, join me next week for more Food News and Views. (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music)