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July 24, 2002, 8:45 a.m. Fancy Food Show Six continents under one Manhattan roof. By Joe Bob Briggs

he first fancy thing I ate at the Fancy Food show at the Jacob Javits Convention Center was a piece of bread soaked in ruby pomegranate vinegar from the Golden Whisk Company of south San Francisco.

You will see in a minute why I can't remember what it tasted like. After the ruby-vinegar sample, I proceeded to consume for about ten-minutes time the following: a Bloody Mary biscuit, a Margarita biscuit, a lavender orange cookie from "My Bubby's Passover Cookies," a heavy chili-type sauce from "Sauces 'n Love" of Somerville, Mass. Then something called Picante Caribe, hot and spicy, served by some smiling Caribbean islanders who turned out to be from Cleveland. A mozzarella ball from the Antonio Mozzarella Factory in Springfield, N.J. A key-lime meringue cookie from Bakehouse Foods of Carlsbad, Calif. ("Seven calories and it's fat free!"). And a slew of other goods that I can hardly remember.

That is when I realized I had only progressed about 30-feet down one aisle in what appeared to be a trade show with a thousand aisles.

I decided to make a plan. I would seek out the lonely, the neglected, the unnoticed Fancy Foods of the world.

Luckily, at that very moment, looming up before me, was the food industry of Bulgaria! I was the only person drawn to the Bulgarian booth because it was mostly shelves filled with honey jars and drab sterilized vegetables.

Fortunately, the ebullient Kiro Kirov of the Bulgaria Trade Center knows how to push those sterilized vegetables. "How you like it? You can have the fried pepper or the peeled pepper! Traditional Bulgarian dish, goes with vodka."

"Can you eat it without vodka?" I asked. (He looked at me quizzically.) "I mean, is the pepper supposed to cut the vodka, or the vodka supposed to cut the pepper?"

"You try it. Very traditional." I went for the peeled pepper, and it was, truly, an amazingly virile pepper. Since no vodka was available, I decided to cut the taste with a bag of Gummy Bear cookies.

And in the process, I spotted Mike Kelley ladling out spoonfuls of caviar at the Kelley's Katch Caviar booth. Mike turned out to be an affable guy that harvests the eggs from paddlefish in Tennessee rivers. He has newspaper articles saying that his caviar is "very comparable to Sevruga."

I would have been willing to vouch for his claim — it was mighty tasty. Of course nothing follows paddlefish caviar like a tangy praline mustard glaze from Savannah, Ga., which, I was assured by "Dr. Peters" representatives, is especially fine with brie. To tell you the truth, though, I could still taste the Bulgarian pepper.

That all changed when I met Vijay Gupta, the enthusiastic proprietor of Jyoti Cuisine India of Philadelphia. He presided over a veritable delicatessen of canned salads, spinach-based meals, and bean delicacies, all served in vintage 1950s Ralph Kramden-style cans.

"All of British Airways vegetarian meals are ours," he assured me as I wolfed down a medley of greens and hot, red things. "Also U.S. Airways, but they don't have much food on U.S. Airways."

I needed to move faster. As I popped a chocolate and yogurt espresso bean from Mocha Magic into my mouth, I spotted the Dave's Insanity Sauce booth and knew I was in danger. A friend of mine had to go to the emergency room once because of an overdose of Dave's Insanity Sauce. So, of course, I slathered some on a cracker and went "Yowza"!

That was it, though. No more salsas, dips, marinades, vinegars or sauces. Life is too short. I cleaned out my palate with a pesto-dipping cracker from Cuisine Perel of San Rafael, Calif., skirted around the crowd admiring the jams of Clearbrook Farms (Sharonville, Ohio), and made a beeline for the bourbon praline pecans sold by Wheelers of Indianola, Miss. A bourbon praline pecan is amazingly satisfying.

Unfortunately, I followed that up with a combination of fudge truffle chocolate cake from Bodega, a wild boar pate with hazelnut from Bec Fin Charcuterie Francaise of Linden, N.J., and — this is the one that did me in — three guava snack bars from Venezuela. As I chewed on the squishy gooey substance — one was guava caramel, one was pineapple, and I forget the third one — I started to get light-headed as I browsed the brochure of La Andina candy company: "In the heart of Venezuelan Andes a sweet tradition is born ..."

There was now an unsweet tradition forming in my stomach, and it wasn't helped by hearts of palm from another Venezuelan booth, or the olives stuffed with hot peppers, combined with a raisin-and-chestnut dip, being offered by Proensa of Peru.

I needed hearty food, I was telling myself — but I was wrong. That was not what I needed at all.

What I needed was Zhumir.

"That looks alcoholic," I said stupidly to Raul Enriquez, a very friendly bartender at the Zhumir booth. "It's the national drink of Ecuador!" he said brightly.

And then he explained the difference between Zhumir, Zhumir Seco, and Zhumir Limon. They all looked like vodka bottles, so I asked "Which one has the highest proof? I just had some Venezuelan candy."

He told me that the plain Zhumir is 86 proof and "for shots only." Magic words. I had a shot of Zhumir.

"Damn that's good," I told him, and he beamed with pride. "It is a very special drink. Made 100 percent from sugar cane."

Suddenly, I was fascinated with the production, marketing, labeling, and distillation of Zhumir — not least because I was angling for a second shot. "Do they sell this in New York?"

"Now they do!" he said still beaming.

I got my second shot, then thought, what the hell, I need to compare that Zhumir to the Zhumir Seco and the Zhumir Limon. This stuff was nirvana after a meal of praline pecans and sterilized East European peppers and Indian vegetarian airline food. But eventually, I ran out of reasons to take additional shots and had to move on.

The Benne wafer, sold since 1919 by Olde Colony Bakery in Charleston, S.C., was a traditional food brought by slaves — I think I got that right after five Zhumir shots. But the Colony Coco Crisp was better. Oddly enough, I had my appetite back.

My Copper River Sockeye smoked salmon from Sea Bear Smokehouse of Anacortes, Wash., was washed down with a British mystery fruit drink called "Vimto", which was sparkling and had a black currant bite. I wolfed a Caesar salad made with "perfect croutons." "At the bottom of the salad bowl, they don't disintegrate," said Virginia, of Live A Little Gourmet Foods in Oakland, Calif.

Then four Turkish guys got me to drink a Uludag, "the most popular carbonated drink in Turkey," followed by an herbal aphrodisiac "dietary supplement" called "Love in a Bottle" which will be called either Niagara or Nexcite when it hits the market. (Legal fisticuffs going on.) Should we really all be drinking this stuff in a group?

This is where it starts to get hazy. I know I talked to some Texans, who sell jars of olives stuffed with blue cheese under the "Epicurean's Delight" brand, because I ate those right before the pickled mitki and wild cucumber and makdous, a small eggplant stuffed with garlic and nuts, all of which come from Beirut.

In my now-vast Fancy Food Show experience, I could attest that the farther east you travel — Bulgaria, Turkey, Lebanon — the better the food is. But that did not stop me from chugging some maple sap water offered at Vermont Sweetwater by a nervous guy who kept explaining the difference between maple sap water and maple syrup water. (I forget.)

I spotted another caviar booth, Royal Caviar Inc. of Glendale, Calif. It turned out to be made out of soy! You see what I mean about traveling East? Fortunately, the importer of Yinpu black-rice beer from China was just across the way, and I quaffed one of those. Outstanding!

"It's really big in Ohio," he told me.

Then I spotted some Bulgarian wines, and since I now had an affection for the whole nation of Bulgaria, I sidled up and asked the woman which one was their best.

"All of our wines are good!" she snapped at me. I started to tell her I was a personal friend of Kiro Kirov, but in the meantime she had started to pour some Bulgarian cabernet sauvignon — Villa Armira, 2001 — and I had a good strong belt. Bulgarian wines, like Bulgarian pickled vegetables, are not subtle.

Now, let me introduce you to the peppadew. The peppadew is a new fruit discovered by accident six years ago on the South African resort of Johann Steenkoman and it has only been in the states for 40 days. It comes from only one place, Tzaneen, South Africa. It looks and tastes sort of like a sweet red pepper, but with some roughness. It is not a pepper, however, as the spokesman for Peppadew International told me. "It's a perennial."

I had no idea what he was talking about, but he had displays of the peppadew on salads, as a garnish, as a pizza topping, and I chomped every one he would let me get close to.

Then, out of the corner of my eye, I spotted Italians. At this point, I had made my way through about ten percent of the show and I realized that I had not even been to Italy yet! Don't half the gourmet foods in the world come from Italy?

Quick decision: Italy was gonna be a speed run.

But it turned out to be impossible. First, I sampled some organic wines from La Cantina Pizzolato, which is from Villorba. (No idea.) The cabernet "base wine" was so good I had to try the riserva as well. Then I spotted the Monini Originale booth, with the rather extravagant claim of having "the best-selling olive oil in Italy." What are there, 97,000 brands of olive oil in Italy?

Now I was in big trouble. Stretching out before me were dozens of guys in Italian designer suits with big smiles on their faces, offering wines. An elegant man named Teseo Mucci served me a montepulciano d'abruzzo from his ancestral vineyard, then a le morge. There was a whole zip code of wines from Sardinia, because, I take it, Sardinia is "breaking out" as a wine region.

"No earthquakes!" explains Tattanu Pira, owner of the Cantina Sociale Dorgali estate, in an effort to tell me why Sardinian wine is so great. "You mean, like, Sicily has earthquakes and you don't, so the wine is better?" He actually winced when I said the word "Sicily." "Never an earthquake in Sardinia!" he repeats. "This name Viniola came from the Romans, from Sardinia. Years ago, we gave grapes to France, to Tuscany. Not anymore!"

All this time, I was savoring a glass of Cannonau di Sardegna from his 2000 vintage. So I was not following the geological survey in its entirety. But suffice to say, the Sardinians have landed!

I can't really tell you all the Sardinian wines I tried, though, because, in the middle of my Mediterranean bacchanal, I was waylaid by Antonette Catani, a freckled female that looked too young to drink. But she was generously pouring a wicked lineup of distilled spirits in pretty bottles that were offered by Branca Products importers and, well, uh — I know one of them was Fernet-Branca, an 80-proof after-dinner digestif with "magical powers" (uh-huh), and another was MOR Vodka from Estonia (yes), and then there was the AGWA herbal liqueur ("Taste the Power of the Amazon!"), and there was a grappa, an orange liqueur, and — my notes are a little shaky at this point, but I think it says Carpano Punt-e-Mes, which is one of those Italian things that have God knows how many herbs in them.

Some wicked person put the Jewel of Russia vodka booth ten paces from the Branca products booth. And because the beautiful bottle was entirely in English, I made the mistake of asking "So is this bottled in the U.S.?" The two shocked Russians behind the counter shouted, "No!" in unison. Because Jewel of Russia is made in Chernogolovka, 40 miles from Moscow, and they are extremely proud that they use the most ancient of Russian distilling processes. They make two kinds — a smooth, extra-filtered blend for the American market, and the traditional "bites like a bulldog" stuff for the Russians. I requested the bulldog and everything started to run together.

I do not remember Greece at all, except the wine bottles were short and squat, like Museum of Modern Art flower vases. I vaguely remember some black-licorice liqueurs from Limbadi, Calabria, and a grappa drink with a giant red pepper inside the bottle.

At some point, I ate Virginia peanuts from the Peanut Patch, a watermelon-strawberry carbonated energy drink called "the Switch," a pecan crinkle from Georgia, a "Vita Muffin" served by actors dressed like Adam and Eve wearing only fig leaves, a Cajun-style andouille gourmet chicken sausage, rice pilaf from another Indian guy, an all-butter cake called a "Dresden stollen" that weighed about 67 pounds and felt like more in the stomach, a Dagoba organic chocolate candy, shredded coconut and roasted Brazil nuts from Brasilia, and duck-liver peppercorn pate while carrying on a long rambling conversation with a man named Joe Macri about how Americans like pork pate better than the greasy duck pate popular in Montreal, where his company Tour Eiffel is based.

"Americans like a smooth texture," he said. "Americans with pate are like they were with brie 20 years ago." At the time, it was all very fascinating.

While Kay Verney is serving me a slice of tea bread from New Salem Tea Bread Company and explaining how her breads became popular eight years ago when she had a restaurant in New Salem, Mass., and how they are made with no preservatives and lots of lemons, I hear a woman nearby say, "Well, I don't drink, but they made me drink some yesterday and now I really like it."

I'm there!

It is Limoncello di Sorrento. Salvatore Vuolo pours it for me, served in a green chocolate cup. Espresso. I need it. I find some, at Italian Products USA, which is next door to Tommy's Naked Soda, where I may or may not have taken a sample of the drink that is "popular on Cape Cod and in Vermont." But I know that at some point — in search of caffeine — I found a Penguin caffeinated peppermint ("Three of these equals one Coke") and then, on the "soak it up" theory, ate one of Blackbeard's Caribbean rum cakes.

At the Costa Rican display of Arabica-bean coffees, I said simply, "Which one's the strongest?" Tarrazu was the strongest. I drank it, and then an XL Energy Drink from Poland, which they assured me was full of both caffeine and Vitamin B.

While downing some grapefruit mineral water at the Sangemini Group display — I had decided to become healthy — I suddenly realized: only 30 minutes till closing time, and there were two entire levels of the convention center I had not even seen.

I ran upstairs and saw a convention floor even bigger than the one I have almost gone through. I panicked. I strode briskly through Morocco and Tunisia, which seemed to be a shrine to the pitted date. A woman collared me at the Jelly Belly booth and asked me if I had ever wondered what grass tastes like.

What would you say? I am not one to pass up a grass-flavored jelly bean. And, wonder of wonders, it does taste like grass!

"How about some dirt?" she says.

"What is this?" I say.

"Harry Potter. It's all the flavors in the Harry Potter books."

Not being a Harry Potter fan, I don't know what she is talking about, but the whole idea has a certain bizarre punk attraction for me. I chew the dirty jelly bean, and it tastes . . . like dirt!

"Want some earwax?" she asked.

What the hell, I am too far gone. I try the earwax, then the sardine, the spinach, and the black pepper. Why am I doing this?

"Are you ready for a booger?"

Yes, she had a booger-flavored jelly bean. With trepidation I swallowed it. Not bad.

"Only one more," she says. "Vomit."

This has not been so bad. I said, "Sure, why not, gimme the vomit." I eat the vomit-flavored jelly bean, and it tastes ... like vomit! I mean, like real vomit. I mean, the kind of strong taste that makes you want to vomit. The jelly-bean woman set me up!

I'm striding down the aisles at breakneck pace now, looking for coffee or strong Bulgarian vegetables, whichever comes first. I find the Neighbors Coffee booth out of Oklahoma City.

"Would you like snickerdoodles, holiday cheer, or mocha java?" I don't have time for this. "The strongest one!"

That would be the mocha java that kills about half the taste. But now I am virtually running — through the Caribbean, through Slovenia — when I see what I need. What I must have. Turkish cheese! It is eastern, it is pungent, it has "overwhelming" written all over it. It's called Tek Sut cheese, and as soon as I bite into it, I know I have made a terrible, terrible mistake. It is dry, it is strong, and it is nasty.

Now, with the taste of Turkish cheese candy vomit in my mouth, I have very few options. Ten minutes till the doors close. Of course, only one thing will do. I speak of the national drink of Ecuador.

I race back downstairs, hoping that Raul Enriquez has not packed up his bottles. He is not only still pouring — he remembers me! But how to explain — other than that I am an out and out alcoholic — that I am back for another shot?

I tell him that I have been to every booth in the Fancy Food fair, that I have tasted the cuisines of six continents, and there is nothing — nothing — that compared in the remotest degree to Zhukir — I mean, Zhumir! Would he do me the honor of pouring one last drink for the day, so that I can leave with the taste of Zhukir lingering in my memory? (I really did say something to this effect.)

He buys it! He tips the bottle into the glass — the 86-proof, of course — and as it courses down my throat, the vomit-flavored Jelly Belly vanishes, the Turkish cheese vanishes, and I think for a moment my knowledge of the multiplication tables vanishes.

But I am a satisfied man. I stride out onto 11th Avenue and soak up the steaming late afternoon sun. I feel, if I may say so, fancy-free.

— Joe Bob Briggs is a columnist for United Press International. This is reprinted with UPI's permission.