Some trends and random delights from the NRA’s annual industry mega-event.

If you want to see where things are headed in the restaurant business, this is the place to do it. The National Restaurant Association’s annual show is the biggest of its kind, attracting a worldwide audience of more than 2,100 exhibitors and 70,000 attendees. According to the NRA, “restaurants are the nation’s largest private-sector employers, generating an annual economic impact of $1 trillion.” This is where these legions of industry professionals come to see what’s new—what they’ll be serving, how they’ll be cooking it, what they’ll be serving it on, even how they’ll clean up after.

In past years, it’s included such pre-packaged ersatz delights as jalapeño poppers and other fat bombs. And with good reason. On the way to the show, Marion mentioned something she’d read in The New York Times food section. In “In New York, the Taste of Victory,” an article on competitive cooking in New York, amateur chef Nick Suarez advised that a heavy hand with fat and salt was an asset. “If the audience is only getting one bite,” he said, “you have to pack as much flavor as you can into that bite.”

That approach to attracting the audience of potential buyers was deliciously in evidence as we sampled our way through the show at Chicago’s McCormick Place—plenty of salty, fatty treats to tempt us. But this year, there was something much more interesting going on. A few words normally heard in the hippest, healthiest, hautest new restaurants were echoing throughout the giant exhibition halls. Continue reading “National Restaurant Association Show 2009: Artisanal, sourced and green are big trends” →