Greek Food Show In Athens

Food shows can really be hit or miss for me.  Sometimes you pay to go into a food show, only to have to pay again and again just to get a bite sized portion of anything.  Other times you pay your entry fee and the food show is full of samples, and nibbles, enough to make you forget about dinner entirely.  Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying I'm a sample hog.  I'm not the guy who walks up to a pile of sample bread sticks and walks away with 20 of them.  I believe in only trying one of each thing available, and if you like it, then maybe go in for another flavour if it's available.

This food show was pretty good on the free samples, and sadly full of people taking handfuls of samples at every opportunity.  I walked behind a few people with their hands full of little cups, tiny spoons, and mini squares of assorted foods.  If you wanted to eat more than a little sample, all of the vendors at this show offered to sell you larger quantities of whatever they had on sample.  So the idea of going in and taking more than a bite came off as really cheap.

Candy wise there was a few offering available, including several sugar free chocolate makers, a couple of traditional Greek sweets, hundreds of spoon sweet makers, and a few tasty cookies.  There wasn't too much that I would call "new" or unique treats available at the show.  Most of the treats I'd seen around town, or at least something very similar.

The one exception to this rule was a halvas that I sampled.  For the most part halvas comes in plain, chocolate and occasionally filled with various nuts.  At this show I had the opportunity to sample cranberry halvas.  It had a really nice tart texture that blended so nicely with the sesame and cocoa flavour of the traditional halvas.  I'd never thought about including juice flavours or even dried berries into a halvas, but I think it's something well worth trying again.  I think a raspberry halvas might work, as might I citrus halvas.  This sample really opened my eyes to some flavour combinations I'd never thought about before.

I had a really good time at this food show, I discovered a few new flavours I'd never sampled before, and I got to enjoy a few flavours that I was very familiar with.  I'm hoping that the large amount of people overindulging didn't put a damper on the show for the exhibitors.  I've been to a few shows that started off with many free samples, but had to change their policies because people visiting got greedy.  It changes the show, and most often not for the better.

Although I did sample a lot, Allison and I picked up a few treats as well, including this selection of sugar free chocolate bars which I hope to review very soon.

CC