International Food and Drink Expo 2009 London Report back
By. Mark K Tilsen Assistant Director of Marketing for Tanka Bar
Part One
Rapid City to MSP to Heathrow and the word zonked begins taking on new levels of comprehension and meaning has I try to convert dollars to pounds and look at a London tube map at 8 in the morning. This is just not going to work.
I pile into a door to door shuttle service and learn that the Docklands where the food show is held, is a long way off on the other side of the city and there are no highways going through London. Just a meandering tangle of streets and a web of history and culture that is fascinating and effective at holding up traffic in equal measure.
We pass the Tower of London and King Henry’s fortress where he beheaded his wives and a wall that stood since the time of the Romans. America suddenly feels very young. My British Hungarian driver informs me that Hungarians is closely related to Finnish where every language around it is Slavic. I give him a Tanka Bar and he informs me that he hates vegetables and asks about hunting in America. I tip him with the Brit funny money and more generously than needed just to make up for it if I miscalculated.
I spend my first two days just sleeping and trying to acclimate to the different time zone while visiting with my fellow members of IAC (Intertribal Ag Council). During set up our crates containing the most impressive IAC booth are held up being delivered.
“First they take our land and now this!?” lol
Donovan, Tina and I are getting so good at setting up this booth is makes me wonder if I chose the wrong vocation in life. Lol. Wandering booth constructor does have a nice ring to it. Kinda like a samurai without the sword and more bolting and lifting involved.
We eat well in this town and have plenty of Tanka Bars on hand incase we get scared of the local cuisine. The breakfasts are a bit heavy and makes my stomach do loop dee loops with all the fatty sausages, but the dinners are top notch. Over the course of the trip we eat Italian prawns and veal, Caribbean jerked chicken, English beef, Chinese dishes served on heaping plates, salted pork and fried hamburgers from Turkish street vendors in Old Street. Back at the hotel on our last night I order an abundance of things I never tried before, horse radish and steak salad, raw meat like beef tartar but steaks, and other weird and great food. Joe Jaramillo said I looked like a movie star surrounded by my platters of food. I thought I looked like someone hungry! lol But, back to the show!
Our first day of the IFE sets the pace for the whole show and I need to convince people who have never eaten buffalo meat to give it a try. Every interaction is a culture exchange/ learning experience/ culinary curiosity/ product placement. And you have two sentences to accomplish that before they move on.
IFE has the feel of an old-school bazaar or traders depot. It is like the modern version of the ancient trade caravans stretching from Europe to Asia. We don’t carry the majority of our product with us and we dress in suits instead of the clothing of our lands but the sharp, savory and entirely alien smells are off putting and utterly intoxicating at the same time. It inspires the imagination if you can open your mind enough to try wild hare and whiskey ice cream or cheese from Bulgaria. There are so many good olives to taste you could spend an hour just sampling olives, these ones from Greece, these from south of Naples, these ones simply marketed as Mediterranean.
I learn a quote from a Councilor of Manchester and I find it proved again and again during the show. “The truth is that spicy curry is every bit as much of the national dish of England as fish and chips.”
I always thought the English had bland tastes and preferred mild food but I was wrong. The Brits love the Tanka Bar hot! Some even go as far as not accepting a free sample of the traditional flavor because it doesn’t have that extra kick of spice they want. Lol
The hard sell is that buffalo meat is so foreign to them. It never roamed here like home, not in living memory. I explain that the buffalo was once the largest migration every known to the planet, millions upon millions of animals stretching from Canada clear into Mexico. I try to pry from my imagination the sound of thundering hoofs like the heartbeat of the Earth and once in a while when I look into their eyes they too can imagine and for the briefest of moments we eat together and dream. Then it is back to the questions “They all extinct, ennit?” and I sigh for moment and get back to the work of promoting our awesome product and educating the throng of guests.
This year IFE is open to the public which is both good and bad, we get much more exposure but a much reduced quantity of serious enquiries. What we set out to accomplish we get done. We want to test the waters of the British marketplace and see if people are open to the taste, concept, and idea. Will the be willing to fork over nearly 3 quid for a snack bar, even one as delicious, nutritious and as amazing as the Tanka Bar, will remain to be seen.
To be continued….
By. Mark K Tilsen Assistant Director of Marketing for Tanka Bar
Part One
Rapid City to MSP to Heathrow and the word zonked begins taking on new levels of comprehension and meaning has I try to convert dollars to pounds and look at a London tube map at 8 in the morning. This is just not going to work.
I pile into a door to door shuttle service and learn that the Docklands where the food show is held, is a long way off on the other side of the city and there are no highways going through London. Just a meandering tangle of streets and a web of history and culture that is fascinating and effective at holding up traffic in equal measure.
We pass the Tower of London and King Henry’s fortress where he beheaded his wives and a wall that stood since the time of the Romans. America suddenly feels very young. My British Hungarian driver informs me that Hungarians is closely related to Finnish where every language around it is Slavic. I give him a Tanka Bar and he informs me that he hates vegetables and asks about hunting in America. I tip him with the Brit funny money and more generously than needed just to make up for it if I miscalculated.
I spend my first two days just sleeping and trying to acclimate to the different time zone while visiting with my fellow members of IAC (Intertribal Ag Council). During set up our crates containing the most impressive IAC booth are held up being delivered.
“First they take our land and now this!?” lol
Donovan, Tina and I are getting so good at setting up this booth is makes me wonder if I chose the wrong vocation in life. Lol. Wandering booth constructor does have a nice ring to it. Kinda like a samurai without the sword and more bolting and lifting involved.
We eat well in this town and have plenty of Tanka Bars on hand incase we get scared of the local cuisine. The breakfasts are a bit heavy and makes my stomach do loop dee loops with all the fatty sausages, but the dinners are top notch. Over the course of the trip we eat Italian prawns and veal, Caribbean jerked chicken, English beef, Chinese dishes served on heaping plates, salted pork and fried hamburgers from Turkish street vendors in Old Street. Back at the hotel on our last night I order an abundance of things I never tried before, horse radish and steak salad, raw meat like beef tartar but steaks, and other weird and great food. Joe Jaramillo said I looked like a movie star surrounded by my platters of food. I thought I looked like someone hungry! lol But, back to the show!
Our first day of the IFE sets the pace for the whole show and I need to convince people who have never eaten buffalo meat to give it a try. Every interaction is a culture exchange/ learning experience/ culinary curiosity/ product placement. And you have two sentences to accomplish that before they move on.
IFE has the feel of an old-school bazaar or traders depot. It is like the modern version of the ancient trade caravans stretching from Europe to Asia. We don’t carry the majority of our product with us and we dress in suits instead of the clothing of our lands but the sharp, savory and entirely alien smells are off putting and utterly intoxicating at the same time. It inspires the imagination if you can open your mind enough to try wild hare and whiskey ice cream or cheese from Bulgaria. There are so many good olives to taste you could spend an hour just sampling olives, these ones from Greece, these from south of Naples, these ones simply marketed as Mediterranean.
I learn a quote from a Councilor of Manchester and I find it proved again and again during the show. “The truth is that spicy curry is every bit as much of the national dish of England as fish and chips.”
I always thought the English had bland tastes and preferred mild food but I was wrong. The Brits love the Tanka Bar hot! Some even go as far as not accepting a free sample of the traditional flavor because it doesn’t have that extra kick of spice they want. Lol
The hard sell is that buffalo meat is so foreign to them. It never roamed here like home, not in living memory. I explain that the buffalo was once the largest migration every known to the planet, millions upon millions of animals stretching from Canada clear into Mexico. I try to pry from my imagination the sound of thundering hoofs like the heartbeat of the Earth and once in a while when I look into their eyes they too can imagine and for the briefest of moments we eat together and dream. Then it is back to the questions “They all extinct, ennit?” and I sigh for moment and get back to the work of promoting our awesome product and educating the throng of guests.
This year IFE is open to the public which is both good and bad, we get much more exposure but a much reduced quantity of serious enquiries. What we set out to accomplish we get done. We want to test the waters of the British marketplace and see if people are open to the taste, concept, and idea. Will the be willing to fork over nearly 3 quid for a snack bar, even one as delicious, nutritious and as amazing as the Tanka Bar, will remain to be seen.
To be continued….
