The big buzz at Catex 2001, the National Catering Exhibition held at RDS Simmons court this week, was about a helicopter that mostly didn't fly.
La Rousse Foods Ltd, a wholesale supplier to hotels and restaurants, had organised a chopper to transport customers from the show to its Park West business campus in west Dublin, and though grounded by foggy weather, the very idea of a helicopter sent a clear message: there is big money in the Irish food-service industry.
A kind of horse fair-cum a.g.m. for the hospitality and catering industry, where equipment and food purveyors comprise a 65-to-35 ratio of some 200 equipment and food exhibitors, Catex attracts around 12,000 visitors during its biannual four-day run. These include chefs, hoteliers, retailers and students - the general public is not admitted - who come to shop, network, compete in culinary competitions and see what's hot in the food world.
And there is a lot going on. Worth an estimated £1 billion to £1.3 billion, according to the trade publication Hotel & Catering Review, the Irish hospitality and catering industry, plagued by chronic labour shortages, is focusing on cost-saving methodology ranging from state-of-the-art electronically-monitored "combination ovens" to wider availability of "pre-prepped" foods.
Concurrently, catering to a more sophisticated public which views dining out as a form of entertainment, it is always looking for new trends, new offerings. As Hugh Farley observes in his amusing new short film, Last Mango in Dublin, a mango's elevation to stardom as the crucial element in an elaborate Mango Fantasy dessert may be a metaphor for the Celtic Tiger's push for image at the cost of substance.
In any case, both the art and the business come together at Catex.
"Chefs move on - customers don't," says a manager from Knorr Bestfoods Ltd, one of the world's largest food manufacturers. Using corporate buzzwords like "piggybacking" and "solution providers", he explains how Knorr's new Caterplan division, involving a line of easily prepared, wholesale semi-prepared dishes, provides the "consistency" of product in midrange restaurants that customers want and that a transient workforce can't provide. Caterplan won Catex's "Most Innovative Food Product" award this week.
Marc Amand, co-director of the above-mentioned La Rousse Foods (provider of the helicopter which finally flew on Thursday), approaches the supercompetitive world of wholesale food distribution via a more personal instinct.
A former sous chef at Dublin's Patrick Guilbaud restaurant, he and his wife Mary Massy, also a chef, decided to market the high-quality, mostly French ingredients and foodstuffs which were difficult to come by in Ireland eight years ago, when they founded the business. Now offering over 2,000 products, they too sell "convenience foods" to chefs, in the form of pastry shells, chocolate dessert cups and French-trimmed racks of lamb.
Part of the high-stakes game of food merchandising is forecasting - or initiating - trends. Capitalising on a present interest in "fusion" cuisine - "we Irish steal from other cultures," says one exhibitor with a laugh - Dublin-based BR Marketing distributes a range of ethnic Asian and Italian foods to Irish supermarkets.
It is also betting on the advent of an "American-style" preference for "healthy" herbal teas with its recent introduction of a large range of Celestial Seasonings herbal teas, a now-mainstream product of hippie America, to Ireland. Will they fly? "We think so," says a spokesman, a vision of California-style joggers and beach beauties populating a possible ad campaign.
On a more spontaneous side of culinary affairs - and what elevates Catex beyond the ordinary trade show - was the inclusion of live chefs cooking real food.
Sponsored by the Panel of Chefs of Ireland, a comprehensive series of competitions in cookery and restaurant service promotes and develops Irish produce and cooking trends, encourages new talent, and fosters new skills, according to John Murray, president of the organisation.
Proving that cookery is a spectator sport, as attested by the popularity of TV shows like The Naked Chef on BBC2, a steady stream of onlookers drifts through the exhibition hall's "Salon Culinaire", an expansive demonstration area equipped with 12 restaurant-standard mini-kitchens.
There's a collegial buzz in the air as contestants bob and weave at their stoves, fuelling a plume of flame in a flambeed dish, or gently tucking a sprig of fresh coriander into a smoked salmon mousse. All is filmed and projected on to large screens, in the manner of a sporting event or rock concert. Colleagues from all walks of the catering industry seem to reunite at this one trade event which everybody attends.
`Ah, finger food. Exquisite, small and fine. Now that's a trend.'
In an intriguing "Mystery Basket" class, contestant chefs are presented with a container of ingredients from which they must create and prepare a three-course meal for three persons in 30 minutes.
"We always try to challenge them," says John Murray, rubbing his hands in anticipation of contestants' utilisation of a fresh pigeon breast that has been included in the basket. Medals are awarded on a point-based system, in which cooking, presentation and hygiene practices are judged. There's a sense of pride in participation. "I think I'll collect my medals all at once," quips Patrick McLarnon, head chef at Brooks Hotel in Dublin, and winner of Senior Duck and Irish Potato contests, to a cousin, Noel McMeel, who is head chef at Castle Leslie in Glaslough, Co. Monaghan.
At the same time, around the corner, in a roughly 20 by 25 feet purpose-built professional kitchen, teams of chefs representing Ireland, Northern Ireland, England and Scotland work on alternating days, preparing the requisite six-course cold buffet for six persons and a three-course plated meal for 80 in the Chef Ireland Culinary Championship. Many of these chefs have been culled from earlier cooking competitions around the country.
Assessing a beautifully arranged assortment of bite-size hors d'oeuvres set forth on a black platter by the Irish team in its public presentation of the cold-buffet segment of the competition one afternoon, one of the judges, Gerhardt Bauer, chairman of the World Association of Cooks Societies, sniffs appreciatively.
"Ah, finger food. Exquisite, small and fine. Now that's a trend."