5 Things that Rocked my World at the Fancy Food Show

Every winter a little something called the The Fancy Food Show comes to San Francisco. Open to people in the food industry, The Fanciness is a tasting conference that packs some of the best foods of the world (and also some of the trendiest and weirdest, like hello, flavored collagen water) into the Moscone Center. Basically, its 80,000 foods all being sampled over 3 days

It’s intense. It verges between overwhelming and hours of fun. And, it’s always packed with some of the most delicious butterfat-laden delights of the world. Some of them I tasted before and ached to revisit, and others were brand new to me.

Here are the 5 things I adored at this Fancy Food Show.

1. Ur-Eiche Cheese:

So good! Because I don’t work in a place that has room to store big Alpine wheels (from 15 to 80 pounds), I don’t get to experience their delciiousness as often as many other cheese people do. So I jump at any chance to taste them. One of the coolest I tried was Ur-Eiche at the Gourmino table. Made by Christa Egil In Switzerland, the cheese tastes like melted butter, hazelnuts, and sauteed onions. Christa uses her own rennet and starter cultures, too.

2. Carline Sheep’s Milk Cheese:

Why yes that is butterfact shimmering on the surface of Carline. Sheep’s milk has 2 x the butterfat as cow’s milk! From France, Carline tastes like browned, cultured butter with a splash of buttermilk. It’s lounging on top of its own wheel in the photo, making kissy faces at the camera. I wanted to eat this immediately with a glass of Sangiovese. Or rosé. Or rosé of Sangiovese. Actually, just hand me any glass of wine.

3. Grey Barn Creamery

I had heard whispers about a new creamery milking just 40 cows in Martha’s Vineyard, I wondered if it was real. 40 cows is too cute to be real, right?! Then I learned Grey Barn took home a silver medal from the World Cheese Awards in Italy last year, which mean that they were definitely real. Whoa. This wekeend I had the pleasure of meeting their super enthusiastic and friendly cheesemaker, Joe, in the photo above. This is the first creamery he’s run on his own. Did I mention he won a World Cheese Award and he was shortlisted for a Good Food Award? If you see anything Grey Barn, get it, but I especially recommend the Prufrock with the orange rind and oozy center. It tastes like cheese silk.

4. Tomme Fermier

The name translates to “Farmhouse Cheese.” That’s it. It tastes like rich cream and hay and melts like a dream. It’s cows milk. It’s simple. Have you tasted it before? Probably! But because these un-blingy “tomme” cheeses are always around, we forget about how charming they are. Re-tasting the classics at the Fancy Food Show is one of my favorite parts of the event. I want this, a pieice of porridge or rustic bread, and a botted of chilled Rhone white wine for dinner tonight.

5. The Cheese Industry

Did I ever mention how cool cheese people are? Look at them! They said yes to holding fake wheels of cheese with me for photos! That’s Madame Fromage to the left, and the inventor of the Cheese Grotto to the right. Sometimes when going to the 2nd or 3rd day of tasting cheese in a row sounds… intense, I remind myself that if I go, I get to see awesome people like this. Photographed at the Culture cheese party.