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FOOD FOR THOUGHT By
Wanda A. Adams
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| • | Bringing healing to the table |
When you realize how much of the food served in restaurants comes out of cans, cartons, bottles and boxes, it's a little scary. But then you start tasting the samples and consider rising labor costs and you see why a trade show like last week's Hawaii Lodging, Hospitality and Foodservice Expo offers a peek into a very different culinary world from your home pantry.
Nulaid Foods, Inc., of Ripon, Calif., was serving mini omelets made with their ReddiEgg cholesterol-, fat- and lactose-free pasteurized egg product, sold in cartons at retail (and in pails, bags and drums for the foodservice industry), and they tasted just fine. Later, I talked to Russ Lynch, who works for Everett, Wash.-based National Food Corp., which sells space- and labor-saving cartons of pre-cracked pasteurized eggs in a number of forms (from just plain eggs to sweetened ones). The eggs, the equivalent of about 50 to a carton, come frozen and are thawed in the refrigerator. Think of the cost of paying someone to crack 50 eggs!
Trends and products I noticed:
Had a long talk with Dave Zitko of Sambazon brand acai products (ah-sigh-EE). Acai, a berry grown on a variety of palm tree that flourishes in the Amazon rainforest in Brazil, is the fruit of the moment. The berries are rather like cherries, with a big pit, with the juice expressed only from the skins. It's higher in antioxidants than even the much-touted pomegranate and has a fatty acid profile similar to the olive, according to studies. The flavor is a bit earthy but not unpleasing.
Sambazon, a touchy-feely kind of company founded by a group of surfers, makes juices, smoothies, a new energy drink, sorbet and supplements. Their original product, however, was the "smoothie pack," plastic containers of acai, alone or blended with other fruits, to which the consumer can add whatever smoothie ingredients they prefer. Zitko said Sambazon, which sells to Jamba Juice and other outlets, is trying to "do it right": Fair wages to once jobless indigenous workers, certified organic, fair trade practices and sustainability (the natives used to cut down the trees to sell for wood or hearts of palm).
Send recipes and queries to Wanda A. Adams, Food Editor, Honolulu Advertiser, P.O. Box 3110, Honolulu, HI 96802. Fax: 525-8055. E-mail: wadams@honoluluadvertiser.com.
For more information about our 150th anniversary cookbook, call 535-8189 (message phone; your call will be returned). You can order the cookbook online.
