Stopped in at the first Auténtica Premium Food Fest… a massive food industry summit with more than 5,000 professionals from distribution, retail, hospitality and haute cuisine all under one roof (AKA my worst covid nightmare!). Even getting out there, on possibly the longest bus route in the city (the convention centre is out by the airport) was fraught, but proper masks were worn there and back.

We got there early so the crowd was still sparse and it was a huge (hopefully well-ventilated) space. The next couple of hours were spent visiting various stalls to check out various Andalucian food products, some of which I had never heard of. Prawn ice cream, anyone? I didn’t fancy trying it but my friend Fiona said it was great. Also the intense plankton paste, which I did try, and was left thinking that the whales probably need this more than we do. But there were plenty of other delicious things to sample and, as always at these events, always fun to run into the usual “foodie” suspects.

Then it was time for the official inauguration, which featured a presentation by my pals at Cañabota and Tribeca. By the time that finished and we were back out in the main hall it WAS PACKED. I mean, you could barely move with people crowding the stalls for bites of this and that. So it was definitely time to go and, to make it even more urgent, my “good” knee had been acting up for a couple of days but chose this day to hurt like fuck.

But I was glad I went. Specifically for these two new discoveries. First off, an extra virgin olive oil from Jaén finished in Lustau amontillado sherry barrels (!!!) by Castillo de Canena. OMG. I almost died of happiness sampling this, quite honestly I have not tasted anything like this ever. Their harissa oil was also killer. Runner up in the OMG department was this vegan foie gras by Hello Fuah, made from cashews. Yes, I know what you are all thinking because I was thinking the same thing, but holy crap it was delicious. As a testament pescatarian Fiona said she didn’t like it because it was TOO MUCH like real foie gras. She’s not one for wanting her vegetarian “meat subs”, burgers, sausage, bacon, etc, to actually replicate meat, but rather to be another option. Like a nice veggie bean burger. To be honest I agree and have never understood by anti-meat people want fake meat… in any case, as previously stated, OMG this fake foie was a winner.

So it was a good visit, albeit cut a bit short. There is so much going on with our Mediterranean Diet being promoted throughout the world, and that can only be a good thing.