A Broad Reference

A while ago when I was still in the good ole USA, I heard about the Taipei International Bakery Show listed on a favorite baking blog (perhaps you've used her recipes- The Cake Bible, Bread Bible etc).
I love trade shows, they really give one the chance to see whatever industry behind the scenes. The last San Francisco Fancy Food Show (FFS) was massive, literally 200k sq Ft, miles of aisles, interesting food and loads of fun (2 days worth). Luckily I was able to use my trusty press pass to register for the Taipei Bakery Show (It's listed as an Agricultural Trade Show here in Taiwan). It was held at the Taipei World Trade Center- which is a massive complex of buildings. It was quite a maze, and not made any easier by the fact that there was another trade show (Digital Electronics) running concurrently, and another show setting up (Taiwan Postal Service). The area was pretty packed, but quite small, I'd say about 1/3 -1/6 the size of the FFS. I managed to walk it in about 3 hours, with intermittent but ruthless sampling, and stops for in depth interviews.

First impressions, wow it's all about the machinery. Everything is made on a scale many orders of magnitude greater than I could ever comprehend. From massive mixers and ovens to silicone muffin/cake pans, it's all about volume baking and automation.

Everything looks gorgeous, any cake shop in Taipei turns out miniature works of art. It's a crime to eat it.

2nd Impressions, sheer disappointment with the empty promises. The pastries were dusty, dry and crumbly, the cakes leaden and fillings fake & gummy. After an in-depth interview with the manager of a major margarine company (whose second largest product was soap), I understand why everything tastes like margarine- coz everything is made with it! Taiwan has gone the cheap route with their baked goods and paid the price. Butter and lard have been substituted with margarine and oil. All the fillings are mass produced and many bakeries use frozen pre-made dough for their rolls, loaves and pastries. So essentially it all comes from just a few manufacturers, who dominate the market. Stuff that smelled divine was like ashes in my mouth.

Still it was an interesting experience, I got to see:
A commercial metal detector that pulls contaminated cookies out of the production line.

Hand made vegetable based pasta

Beans and more beans used for sweet fillings. Ok so these are the real thing, but somehow still miss the mark. I don't know if its just something is lost in the scale of things, my taste buds or if people really will continue to buy this stuff. (Please note I ate these sort of sweet bean filled pastries in Japan and enjoyed them tremendously)

The Chocoli Chicks- very earnest in their attempts to distribute chocolate buttons.
Traditional pineapple filled cookies.
Gelato (that's more like it!)

And the Taiwan National Junior Bakery Competition Finals- Preliminary competition to the Junior World Championships. Quite a long day for the contestants, who are required to start the previous nite. They have to temper enough chocolate for a sculpture (chocolate form) and also create several different kinds of truffles and decorative candies.

I didn't see any of the judges tasting anything, so I don't know if they care about that at all. There were mad, mad decorating skills- I was really impressed. So much so that I lingered for over an hour watching the competition. The final touches, judging and moving the pieces was all so interesting. Entry #3 almost lost his whole sculpture during the move, so it was quite dramatic.

And I agreed with the winner! Of course my Chinese being somewhat lacking I could be totally wrong about who actually won.

Afterwards I toured thru the Taipei 101 building- 2nd tallest in the world.