Shadowing our editor, I jetted across the pond this week to New York's Fancy Food bash. As usual, he lapped up the Champers in first class while I had my usual cheap, cheap economy ticket. Still, he did slip me a stale croissant. Mind you, at least I arrived in the Big Apple with my luggage. Not so Jim Walker, head of Walkers Shortbread, and Barbara Green of the Welsh Development Agency Food Directorate. Their bags went missing "somewhere in the Atlantic" between the UK and Kennedy airport. And that explains why the usually sartorially correct Mr Walker sported cotton trousers and a sports coat on opening day. And it was also why Ms Green shot off towards the Fifth Avenue boutiques to pick up a new business suit (all on the offending airline, of course.) But say what you like about the Yanks, they know how to eat. Not content with hash browns, streaky bacon, three sunnyside up eggs and triple burgers for breakfast, I spotted one NYC agent persuading his UK contact to scoff a 28 ounce steak and half a ton of fries at lunch in 42nd Street. (Exit, later, green faced Home Counties buyer, not seen again for hours.) But have the Yanks no style? They want us to send them Blue Stilton with blueberries, and Coombe Castle International is shipping clotted cream with added strawberries as New Yorkers bid to inject convenience into our great ritual, the Devon Cream Tea. Still, by the time the second day dawned I had joined the gluttons. A tour of the fair served up tastings of fluted dark chocolate dessert shells, cranberry nut conserve, chocolate fondue, Screamin hot cheese flavoured pecans, and Holy Smoke grilling chips. Then we had lunch. {{COUNTERPOINT }}