25 November 2015
CURRENT FOOD TRENDS
Just like fashionistas’ hipster beards and ripped jeans, the food industry is beholden to the latest and sometimes zany food trends. Just when you have finally mastered the slow cooker to produce tasty but mushy dinners it has fallen from grace, to be replaced by a must-have gadget or ‘bullet’ that purees, froths up vegetables and fruits for tasty healthy smoothies that will make your hair shine like a beacon in a storm and your body bounce with new energy.
Chefs are the people driving the new food trends. Just one clever idea, ingredient, recipe or innovation from a leading influential restaurant or television chef and everyone is wanting to try it, emulate it. Soon it may become a supermarket item and appear in the pages of the foodie section of the newspaper or the women’s magazines.
However we’re witnessing food trends that are more people-driven than traditional restaurant-driven ideas.
The biggest influence on the current food landscape is socially conscious eating. We seek the provenance of our food, we support producers and growers whose ethics are admirable, we dine out for a cause and we worry about feeding the hungry and the needy. Our schools inspire and encourage their pupils through schemes like Garden to Table and Kids Can Cook, teaching them the value of fresh produce that’s sown, grown, harvested, cooked and eaten in the school garden and classroom as part of the curriculum. In Auckland the new Eat My Lunch scheme provides a lunch for a needy child for each lunch you buy. It’s sourced by donations, volunteers and crowd funding.
Increasingly we are conscious of food waste. Heard of ‘dumpster diving’? It started out with people raiding the bins of supermarkets and restaurants, hauling out edible food thrown out as the use-by-date expired or food that was extra to requirement. Now various initiatives have set up to collect and redistribute this food. Kaibosh Food Rescue collects 10,000 kilograms of quality surplus food each month from businesses in Wellington and the Hutt Valley, sending it to local community groups who help those in need.
The third big trend is health conscious eating. The young and the fit lead this trend, trying diets of raw food, paleo, vegan, vegetarian, fat-free, additive-free, chemical-free, gluten-free, grain-free and sugar-free. Consumers demand fresh food, preferably traceable to the local farm or factory, and shop for organic produce in specialist food stores, farmers markets, health food stores and good old fashioned butchers, greengrocers, bakeries and fishmongers. Supermarket aisles stocked with shelf-stable additive and preservative laden foods are quickly passed by, as the store’s outer perimeter with its fresh, refrigerated food products increasingly becomes the popular place to source the week’s shopping.
We eat out more often; regularly in cafés where the food is fast and fresh, in restaurants where shared plates and small plates have replaced the concept of the three course meal, and in pop-up dining destinations where the word gets around through social media. The biggest eating out trends are cheap eats and street food, brought to you by hole-in-the-wall cafés and colourful food trucks who deliver instant plates of tasty food to eat on the run.
TOP FOOD TRENDS
Fermented foods: This is not just fuelled by the high interest in Korean cuisine and its staple kimchi, the fiery fermented cabbage dish. Health experts are gripped by fermented yogurt, miso, kombucha, kefir, fermented vegetables and tempeh, which allegedly boost the good bacteria in your digestive tract, and help to heal a multitude of health issues.
Handmade muesli and porridge: Visit any farmers market and count the new cereals on offer. Fresh, handmade and filled with healthy seeds, nuts, grains and dried fruits with no added sugar, these are the new breakfast.
Sourdough bread: While supermarket aisles remain crammed with squishy sliced and plastic wrapped loaves, small bespoke bakeries are churning out handcrafted slow-rise breads, made with genuine sourdough starters and chockfull of grains, sprouted wheat and goodness. Expect to pay up to $10 per loaf. It’s worth it.
Doughnuts: The cronut, where the doughnut and croissant merged, was an unhealthy flop but the doughnut is back. Decorated with fruit, chocolate, cream, custard, jelly, icing and much more, it is commanding attention world-wide. One of the fastest sell outs at this year’s Wellington on a Plate was the pop-up doughnut stall with new inventive flavours daily.
Vegetables: Kale, cauliflower and beetroot. If you’re not eating these vegetables, you are missing out. The star of the plate is no longer the protein component, but a colourful cornucopia of vegetables. My Food Bag has introduced a Veggie Bag, while leading restaurant chefs are offering well planned degustation meals of vegetables.
Grains: Pearl barley, freekah, brown rice, ancient grains like quinoa, amaranth, millet, and teff have become the darlings of the gluten free set. Also look for pasta and noodles made from non-wheat sources, such as brown rice, buckwheat, or quinoa.
Hot sauces: Fire up your cooking with hot and spicy sauce. The traditional Tabasco sauce from the bayou is joined by an array of locally made scorching sauces such as the award winning Culley’s, Huffman’s and Kaitaia Fire.
Coconut: Debate rages on over coconut and its health benefits, but coconut sugar, coconut yogurt, fresh coconut in salads, coconut cream and milk, coconut ice blocks and ice creams and coconut water continue to sell like crazy, many as an alternative to dairy products.
Bone broth: When did stock become ‘bone broth’? It’s just a rich chicken, meat or vegetable stock dressed up with a fancy name but it is the drink or soup you want when you crave comfort food.
Pork buns: The new slider. Soft, white pillowy buns, (bao) usually stuffed with roast pork with crunchy crackling and some spicy Asian sauce, are the hot item in restaurants, food trucks and farmers’ market. And there’s a tofu version for the vegetarians.
TOP BEVERAGE TRENDS
Kombucha: Fermenting tea or fruit juice with sugar and the ‘scoby’, a culture of yeast and bacteria, to produce a refreshing non-alcoholic zesty drink has become a home hobby trend. A range of good flavours made by artisan producers are stocked in many supermarkets.
Low alcohol beer and wines: Popularity and consumption of low alcohol alternatives is soaring. Stricter drink/driving rules and the attraction of less alcohol will make these a smash hit this summer.
Artisan and craft beers: New Zealand’s love affair with craft beers is unstoppable.
Rose wine: Wineries throughout the country are offering blush pink wines that are light and delicious. And sparkling rose will be the go-to choice for summer drinking.
THREE TOP KITCHEN GADGETS
Nutri Bullet: This handy little processor and its equivalents make a healthy and highly nourishing liquid meal for breakfast and lunch. Soups, drinks and even a complete dinner party can be whipped up in seconds.
Nespresso machine: Move over the coffee plunger and instant coffee. Nespresso have brought the style of the café to coffee making at home with machines ranging from the simple to the glamorous, and provide a complete range of specialist single origin coffees to brew from around the world.
Soda Stream: As sugary drinks topple from popularity, sparkly water is right on trend. With a handy machine on the bench top, all the family enjoys added zing from good old tap water.
TOP RESTAURANT TRENDS
Burgers: Expect to see more and more upmarket burgers and burger destinations as we continue to embrace the idea of a simple tasty meal solution. Auckland’s new Burger Burger eatery offers the healthy gluten free option of burgers in a ‘bunnuce’, a small cos lettuce that replaces the bun.
Southern style barbecue: Glorious hunks of smoky meat, slow cooked in a wood fired oven and accompanied by coleslaw, collard greens, and spirals of fried potato are all the rage. And not to miss out on this trend from the southern states of the US is fried chicken. Chefs soak the portions in buttermilk before dipping in yet another secret mix of spices, herbs and flour for the ultimate crunchy tender bird. It’s everywhere.
Middle Eastern: British chef Yotam Ottolenghi, currently one of the most popular book author and food writers in the English speaking world, has influenced and inspired many menus, chefs and cooks with his take on the food of his homeland Israel and its neighbours. It’s food with exotic spicing, lemons, wild honey, falafel, tahini, pomegranates, date molasses and more.
Philippine, Vietnamese and South East Asia: The latest Asian cuisine to garner attention is Philippine cooking. As young immigrant chefs in our restaurants show off their heritage we can expect such menu items as suckling pig, the spring roll-like lumpia, adobo - a rich stew infused with vinegar, halo halo for dessert and plenty of tropical fruits and coconut. Vietnamese food, with its mountains of fresh herbs is also on the rise again and clever chefs are bringing all South Eastern Asian cuisines together in genuinely interesting Pan Asian fusion cooking.
Peruvian food: It is big overseas, commanding worldwide attention as the Peruvian government backs its top restaurant chefs. Three of the World’s Best 50 restaurants can be found in Peru, and culinary tourists are flocking there to eat. Pisco sour, a cocktail with the local brandy, meets ceviche, and causa made with heritage potatoes from the Andes in a new sophisticated food movement. Forget those tales of guinea pigs.
first published in my Listener Food Column November 2015