Noshfest packs Wychwood Barns with Jewish Food lovers

I would have to say that NOSHFEST at Wychwood Barns was a big success for the organizers and for most of the vendors selling their Jewish food.  I would say it wasn't as successful for the many people lined up to get in.  There is clearly a demand for these type of Ethnic centred events and since a Jewish Food Festival isn't a common thing in Toronto it brought out a whole lot of Jewish people and more looking for something to do and eat on a beautiful Sunday afternoon in November.

It was so packed that I only stood in one line to get food.  I waited somewhere around 20 minutes for a Lox and Cream Cheese Bagel from Schmaltz Appetizing.  I waited because the only time I finally got a chance to go there when I had my car I found it to be the best Lox in the city.  I would say the lox was good but the bagels weren't as fresh as they could have been so it wasn't as good as my trip to their tiny out of the way spot.  Unfortunately I don't even have a photo because it seems my phone was too full to save the photos I was snapping away.  I guess I should have checked them.  Luckily I used my Canon camera for a bunch of photos at the beginning when i scoped out the vendors.

Well known restauranteur Zane Caplansky was kept very busy slicing meat for his deli sandwiches.  Because he is so familiar to Torontonians he had a very long lineup too. I prefer to get food from his trucks or restaurants and he attends a lot of shows so I didn't feel the need to wait in line this time.

Also there slicing corned beef were the people from Pancer's Deli.  I didn't have any but my cousin did.  I know it can't be the same as getting a hot steammy sliced stack on rye from the restaurant.  It's hard to keep the food hot at these pop up events so the food suffers a bit.

The predominant thing at Noshfest seemed to be pickles,  pickles on sticks, sweet pickles, garlic pickles and more.  I did sample 3 of the pickles and it's nice to see a variety for different people's tastes.

 There were different babkas, cookies, brownies, and other desserts.

Not so traditional foods included Beer, Fried Chicken with Moroccan seasoning or something like that and some vegan plate of food I couldn't exactly tell what it was but my cousin tried it and it didn't look like something I would seek out so I didn't try it.

There was a matzoh ball soup,  and lemonana lemonade drink and oddly there were fish tacos, falafel, hummus and pizza.

I think I had higher expectations of what this festival could have been.  I would have liked to see someone like Anthony Rose there showing some interesting Jewish Food and more traditional dishes that are harder to find or elevated.  I suppose I have gone to too many festivals and I am always looking for a bit more.  There was gefilte fish from Central Epicure but it's the stuff you can buy at grocery stores and I would have loved to see things from Regina's Deli or something similar with hand rolled Gefilte fish and dishes like chopped liver, knishes, dumplings, latkes and other delicious Jewish foods.  It seems that Jewish food has kind of fallen out of trend in this city while Asian food is booming.  Most of the Jewish food restaurants are very dated and need a little modernization and updated way of serving the food.  I know there are people out there doing some interesting things and i would have like to see them showcase those things at this festival.   Maybe next year.  It's always hard to get people involved at the beginning.   Maybe people will jump on the bandwagon and turn Jewish food into trendy food.  One can hope.