People sometimes ask me why I write about Kosherfest every year. After all, Kosherfest is a trade show, and as such, it’s really only open to people in the kosher food industry. Though I suppose that technically, every Jew is in the kosher food industry. In fact, 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.)

Okay, 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 okay?”

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 food samples 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 okay.

(Wait until you see this in their ads: “Surprisingly okay!”—M. Schmutter, Jewish Link.)

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, Jewish Link.)

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 3 colors—green, pink and standard concrete grey. 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 from monochrome gefilte fish. So he gave me a whole speech about how 50 percent of eating is about how it looks, and how food doesn’t taste as good in the dark or if you wolf it down as it does on a toothpick, while getting elbowed by passersby and trying to pick up a salmon dog off the floor.

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 and 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.”

There was also a trend of bringing traditional Asian foods to the Jewish market. For example, one booth had a seaweed snack, which looks like you’re just eating the outside part of your sushi, without all the good stuff. It’s like eating candy wrappers.

Another Japanese booth was serving sake (pronounced “sah-key”). But I didn’t dare have any after my tiny bit of wine. Also, to me it sounds like they’re saying, “Socky.” Like that’s how it tastes.

“It tastes socky.”

“That’s because there’s socks in it.”

“Really?”

“No. Fifty percent of eating is smell, and we just took off our shoes.”

I have a similar question about hoisin sauce.

By Mordechai Schmutter

Mordechai Schmutter is a freelance writer and a humor columnist for Hamodia and other magazines. He also has six books out and does stand-up comedy. You can contact him at [email protected].