Over 1,100 booths, most offering a dozen or more products, filled three floors of Manhattan's huge Jacob Javits Center at this summer's National Association for the Specialty Food Trade (NASFT) Fancy Food show.

The experience was overwhelming and it was impossible to taste everything, even in three days.. The show's sheer variety tantalized my appetite and fatigued my pallet. After a while, a morsel of anything more was too much to bear.

The show was carnival of regional cultures and I remember the unusual flavors best.

Beverages

The carambola (fruit) drink from Barbados (www.carib-export.com) was unusually tasty.

Brazil's guarna (bean) soda (www.bevnet.com) was invigorating.

The Mediterranean la casera (berry) soda is a perfect mixer for wines (Affinity Beverages. Westport. CT).

There were hundreds of coffees and thousands of teas, but the unusual fruits (and flavors) were the most memorable.

A lively crowd from SOHO hawked LocoSoda, a cool lime soda with hot chili peppers, and the Brazilian avenue plied the crowd with potent drinks of cachaca, a sugar-cane alcohol, lime and sugar.

Popcorn

Popcorn this year was noteworthy, emphasizing original American varieties with unusual features
and flavors.

Black Jewell Popcorn of St. Francisville, IL featured black and red varieties that have fewer hulls than yellow popcorn.

Market Square Foods from Highland Park, IL offered "the world's tiniest" popcorn - a native variety with tiny kernels that grow on a very small cob. Even though not all the kernels popped, the popcorn is small enough not to break or stick between the teeth.

Sunflower Foods, Overland Park, Kansas, offered the most unusual popcorn: a small cob that's ready to pop in your microwave. The popped kernels remain on the cob. And, it's tasty, too.

Hot Sauce

This year's hot sauce offerings avoid phrases like "death," "meltdown," and "atomic." Instead,
the emphasis is on unusual peppers often mixed with fruits and vegetables.

From Oklahoma, Pepper Creek Farms (.com) brought tasty serrano peppers mixed with carrots, and was one of the show's specialty foods award winners.

Amazonas Imports (www.amazonasnaturalfoods.com) featured the aji amarillo, a long yellow, mildly hot pepper from Peru, mixed with various fruits or huacatay, a tropical herb with an unusual flavor.

Another taste sensation came from Jay's Enterprises, Newton Ch, Barbados, whose gourmet sauces feature smoky Ambarella (tropical pear) sauce and zesty carambola sauce for salads and seafood. Like all Caribbean hot sauces, the principal pepper is habanero or scotch bonnet, but Jay mixes it with unusual fruits for taste.

One unusual twist comes from Grace Kennedy of Jamaica (www.gracefoods.com). She explained that Americans simply cannot master the art of jerking meat with dry herbs, so she's made a barbecue sauce that is jerk flavored.

Connie Bingham from Texas (www. texasplumline.com) soothes the heat with a barbecue sauce made with wild plums from the Brazos.

Finally, you know hot sauce transcends cultural barriers when Deb-El Foods of Elizabeth, New Jersey introduced Island Blaze, Kosher hot sauce.

A few other products stood out from the crowd.

Baron Foods from St. Lucia offered an interesting banana (not green) ketchup, full of flavor.

A truly oriental taste was developed in Norfolk, Virginia by Peter of Peters Beach Sauces (.com) with a sesame oil and ginger barbecue sauce.

Ramy Wild Rice (.com) served extremely long-grain and flavorful wild rice.

Rau Arte Dolciaria from Sardinia had a very tasty Limoncello liqueur.

Kervan Foods from Turkey passed out delicious popping cherry candy.

Last, but hardly the least, Kelly's Katch from Savannah, Tennessee offered small bites of caviar from the paddle-nosed catfish. It tastes no different from Beluga. But that, in itself, is a flavor triumph at $7 an ounce rather than $70.