CONVENTION CRASHING: Western Food Industry Exposition

Brendan Buhler

Thursday, Oct. 26, 2006 | 7:59 a.m.

Among the dozens of product booths and hundreds of products on display at the Western Food Industry Exposition at the Mandalay Bay on Tuesday, the biggest surprise was probably the sight of an old friend dipped in chocolate.

Altoids dipped in dark chocolate? Oh, the strange times we live in.

Yet there they were, amid all the frozen food, ice cream chips, wet-floor signs, self-checkout counters, pet toys, sodas, cookies and antacids being peddled to purchasers for grocery stores.

Tasted OK, too, at least the peppermint ones did, especially if you let them melt on your tongue. The cinnamon ones were just odd and the less said about the ginger ones, the better. They weren't even displayed at the booth and we had to request one. Whoops. Chocolate and ginger go together like peanut butter and salmon.

"All of our consumer research is that the pecking order is peppermint, cinnamon and ginger," said Stan Bunch, a salesman for Wrigley's. "I'm not a big fan of the last two, but that's why there's more than chocolate and vanilla in the world, you know?"

Product 1: Flavored with loosened lug nuts

"Have you ever seen olive oil in a spray?" one of the saleswomen asked.

And we have, only always in expensive little pump-sprays and not in aerosol cans like hair spray. But here it was, just like that, going by the name Oro de Olivo (Gold of the Olive).

A second sales siren appeared. "Come, try some," she said.

So we did, sort of. We picked up a can and sprayed a toast oval. The oil bubbled atop the toast for a few seconds. We did not eat it.

"See? It works," a siren said. Then we learned it sells for about $4 in jumbo Wal-Marts and giant Targets, and that when you use liquid olive oil, a lot of it goes to waste and not onto your food, so this 7-ounce can is really the equivalent of a whole gallon of extra virgin oil - 790 servings in a can. It's great on salads. And so far, she said, there are no competitors.

We eyed the turbulent surface of the toast and asked what the propellant was.

"Oh, we can't tell you that," a siren chimed. "It's part of the secret, um, formula."

Then a salesman detached himself from his cellular phone and wandered up.

"It's natural gas," he said. "It evaporates off."

"Well," said the siren, slicing at the salesman with her eyes, "now you know the secret."

Then they gave us a press kit with three flavors (extra-virgin, garlic and hot pepper) and some crackers to test them on.

Back at the office, we put a cracker on our editor's desk, sprayed it and offered it up to him. (The key to bold and fearless reporting is having the courage to trick your boss into testing suspicious products.)

"Ooh - olive oil," he said.

And then: "Bleh bleg blah bleh yeg yuck - tastes like propellant - bleh bleh yuck!"

After he was done spitting into the wastebasket, he lit out for the soda machine, wiping his tongue the whole way. Later, when he had stopped gargling diet Pepsi, he said it was "like licking WD-40."

But, thinking that maybe our editor made a mistake (other than trusting us) by eating it while it was still bubbling, we sprayed a second cracker and let it sit for five minutes.

In fairness to the good people at Oro de Olivo, we must say that after it stops bubbling, the product acquires the mellow tenor of Liquid Wrench, with just a hint of Simple Green cleaner.

Scrub your tongue with lime wedges to get rid of the taste.

Product 2: A taste of very old Mexico

Hacienda 1881. Canned pulque in four flavors: lemon, passion fruit, coconut pineapple and natural. Pulque is a beer fermented from agave plants and dates back to pre-conquest Mesoamerica, when it was often used in religious ceremonies. Has to be pasteurized, says Phil Alexander of Logret Import & Export, otherwise the cans would blow up.

"It's supposed to be an aphrodisiac," Alexander said, "for both the male and the female."

Not being aficionados, we can't say whether the tangy cucumber taste is authentic.

"We've done a lot of shows," Alexander said. "At first I didn't like it, but you can acquire a taste if you try."

Overheard

"Some nice olive oil over there. Some nice olive oil girls over there."

- Salesman