“Please try our new organic chipotle-mango-cranberry-coconut-lemongrass-sour cherry-ginger-garlic-walnut-pistachio-pomegranate-cilantro-olive-tomato-cumin-cocoa-lime-basil-pineapple dipping sauce. It’s made with sherry vinegar and agave nectar, with a hint of green tea.”

Were all those ingredients really combined in a single product? I’m not sure, but that’s how it felt to my overworked mouth and tummy as I wandered the aisles of the Fancy Food Show at the Moscone Center in San Francisco last week.

The annual show is an enormous munch-a-thon, with endless rows of hopeful entrepreneurs, all pushing samples and trying to catch the eye of potential buyers. I nibbled a bite of chocolate, then a crabcake, dipped a bit of bread into some olive oil, followed it with spiced nuts, more chocolate, some smoked salmon on a cracker, a couple of olives, toffee, a brownie and pad thai noodles, then washed it down with an anti-oxidant energy drink before I circled back for more toffee.

And that was just the first 10 minutes. I still had about 10,000 booths to visit, so after that I picked up the pace.

Oh, the sacrifices I make for you, so that I can bring you the latest information from the world of edibles.

I bravely soldiered on for hours, looking for the elusive Next New Thing, as my pants slowly tightened around my waist.

I have a few discoveries to report:

• Paper teabags have gone the way of the dinosaur. Beautiful mesh fabric bags are now de rigueur. The packaging is exquisite; the leaves inside are apt to be handpicked, organic and identified by variety, country of origin, altitude and terroir. The teas are delicious. And worlds away from good old Tetley.

• Anti-oxidants are everywhere, and energy drinks are moving upscale. I consumed so many anti-aging compounds during my trek through the halls that I was two years younger by the end of the day. The weirdest was an herbal brew from Sweden that for unknown reasons was the color of blue popsicles. Blue food. Not a lasting trend, I hope.

• Green, however, is a hue I can get behind. Saving the planet has finally gone mainstream. Products of all sorts were proudly marked “organic”, “sustainable,” “all natural” and “fair-trade.”

• We can all cook exotic cuisines without cracking a cookbook. Simmer sauces are the new convenience food, for a semi-homecooked meal a giant step up from Hamburger Helper.

• Indian food may be the next big craze, though the Mediterranean is still hot, and South America is coming on strong.

• There’s a company making wonderful toffee, right here in Napa. I’d forgotten how much I love toffee. It’s the best confection on earth.

• Artisan chocolate is everywhere, and in no danger of getting less popular. In fact, there are many, many more companies making chocolate than toffee. (Where are our values?!)

• There are still some tropical fruits out there that haven’t made it to the local Safeway yet: mangosteen, carica. And an ancient Greek spice called chios mastiha (gum mastic), made from tree resin, that you don’t need to run out and hunt for, trust me.

• But there are very few new worlds left to conquer. Just about every other variety of fruit, chili, herb, oil, vinegar, spice, nut, or herb from every corner of the globe seems to have been rediscovered — and cooked into sauces, marinades, salad dressings, jams and chutneys, in all imaginable combinations.

The show was fascinating — and overwhelming. At the beginning I felt as excited as a kid in a candy store, but by the end of the day, all those tongue-tempting treats were a turn-off. I left feeling incredibly grateful to the hard-working folks from our local stores, who do the hard work of filtering through all those thousands of products so we don’t have quite so much choice in our daily shopping.

It turns out too much of a good thing is actually not all that great.

With the possible exception of toffee.

———

No, I’m not giving you a recipe for toffee, despite my current fixation. Support a local business and get some from the Napa Valley Toffee Company — it’s fabulous.

Instead, after I recovered from the show, I was inspired to raid my pantry to come up with my own unusual blend of ingredients. Use this as a traditional chutney with Indian food, as a barbeque sauce, or as an exotic replacement for ketchup.

Seeing Red Tomato-Cranberry Chutney

Ingredients

1/2 cu p finely chopped red onion (about 1/2 an onion)

1/2 cup finely chopped red pepper (about 1/2 a medium pepper)

1 Tbsp. oil

12 cloves garlic

3 inch piece of ginger, peeled and coarsely chopped (about 1/4 cup)

1 1/4 cups red wine vinegar, divided

One 28-ounce can whole, peeled, Italian tomatoes

1 1/2 cups fresh cranberries

1 3/4 cups sugar

1 1/2 tsp. salt

A pinch or two of cayenne or hot pepper, to taste

Directions

Saute the red onion and red pepper together in the oil over medium heat until soft. Transfer them to a blender, add the garlic, ginger and 1/2 cup of the vinegar, and puree completely.

Pour the tomatoes and their juice into a large saucepan, along with the cranberries. Add the mixture from the blender, along with the sugar, salt, cayenne and the remaining vinegar. Bring to a boil then reduce to a simmer, stirring to break up the tomatoes and mash the cranberries as they cook. Continue to simmer for about two hours, until the mixture thickens. Stir more toward the end, so that it doesn’t stick to the bottom of the pot and burn.

Pour into clean glass jars and refrigerate. It will keep for several months.

Note, it will thicken up even more as it cools — it is like a sweet and sour jam. To use it as barbecue sauce or ketchup, thin it with a little warm water. Makes approximately 3 cups.

Napa writer Betty Teller is a serious foodie who tries not to take food too seriously. She can be reached at amuse-bouche@sbcglobal.net.