As we embark on a new year, we look back on the previous year to learn and make progress for the upcoming year. Day by day, people live their lives, some by a set routine, others by thriving on new discoveries and expansions. The human race always seeks to progress culture by devising and adapting new approaches to existing methods. While not all humans share the same interests, all humans at least bear knowledge about food, as everyone has eaten food their entire lives. From the early days of basic meats, vegetables, and grains, food has evolved into a vast range of ingredients, tastes, cooking methods, and presentation. Innovative foods often make headlines as a new discovery, so as a result, many modern chefs tend to experiment more rather than stick to basics. Over time, many food trends surface, giving way to entrepreneurs to capitalize on those growing trends, such as cupcakes, frozen yogurt, and the recent gourmet food trucks trend. However, many food trends remain relatively undisturbed, known only to the true food fans. Last year saw a few food trends touched on, yet they still have not flourished. Read on to find out five food trends to pay attention to this year.
5. Duck Fat
Ask any meat eater about their favorite meat, and nine times out of ten you will receive “Bacon” as the response. Those nine people also agree that the tenth person should shut up, but that argument belongs to someone else. Anyways, most people recognize that fried foods get fried in oil, which does not add much flavor to the end product, just the crunch. Most mass-produced food tend to use cheaper ingredients, like how many chain restaurants fry their fries in oil. When you start to step up the quality, you see the previously mass-produced foods getting prepared in small batches. Have you ever tried a small batch of fries fried in duck fat? Move over, bacon – duck fat fries carry tons more flavor, cooked right into each fry. Sure one can cook fries in bacon grease, but in addition to gaining more bad grease than flavor, does the fryer use high-quality bacon or store-bought bacon? Besides just fries, plenty of other foods can cook in duck fat. Duck carries more flavor and texture than chicken and turkey, as most ducks live in the wild. Always remember that wild meat almost always outperforms farm meat in every category.
4. The Influx of Gastropubs
Red Table‘s Loco Moco
When deciding on a place to go dine out, do you ask where to go, or do you get asked where to go? Traditionally, recommendations go along the line of cuisine type, such as Asian, Italian, Mexican, Sushi, and so forth. But when you ask someone where to eat (or vice versa), how often would you hear someone mention a gastropub? Until recently, nobody had even heard of the word gastropub. With the recent preference shift towards higher quality food, people started recognizing the significance of gastropubs in the restaurant circuit. If you have not heard of a gastropub, imagine a pub that serves craft beer and high-end food at reasonable prices. Because of how recent gastropubs started emerging, most gastropubs feature nontraditional dishes, preferring to think outside of the box they call a kitchen, and rambling up something crazy that works. Want to see pulled duck, cheese, and a fried egg over fries? Only at a gastropub. Want to see french toast, bacon, maple syrup, and peanut butter ice cream? Only at a gastropub. Want to see a bacon-wrapped meatloaf stuffed with a hard-boiled egg? Only at a gastropub. You can find amazing food at a gastropub that you most likely will not find anywhere else.
3. Cooking with Craft Beer
The Viking Truck‘s Wipeout IPA Lamb Sliders
The popularity of craft beer has soared over the past few years. While the same few fizzy yellow beers continue to dominate market share across the globe, as people get educated about craft beer, the preference shifts from cheap beer to quality beer. Like wine, craft beer pairs well with almost all food, especially meat. Also like wine, the color of the beer should pair with the meat; e.g. wheat or white ales should pair with poultry, and brown or amber ales should pair with red meat. Some crafty chefs have experimented with cooking with craft beer as well. Following the simple aforementioned pairing guide, chefs have churned out food made with craft beer, which dynamically alters the entire dish. Cooking with alcohol usually burns it all off, allowing minors to order the food, but the reduction process enhances the dish, modifying the flavor to something different than the beer. Do not see it as tasting like a mix of the two – see it as an entirely new dish. Once you eat something prepared with craft beer, you will understand what I mean.
2. Meat in Desserts
UMAMIcatessen‘s Foie Gras & Jelly Donut
How often does one end a meal with a component of the main course? When selecting dessert, people want something sweet, or perhaps a warm drink like coffee or tea. Would you ever expect to eat a dessert contained meat? To some people, they see meat as their choice of comfort food, and thus opt towards something meaty. But if those people ever found out about dessert with meat in it, I doubt I could keep them down for long. This food trend started over a decade ago, when some restaurants served dessert with bacon in or on it. Since people did not accept this change back then, it fell out of favor… until recently. When the good food revolution came about, all sorts of people wanted to explore the culinary world to find out what they had ever missed. One restaurant created a chocolate bar with bacon in it, which got them on the Food Network. Since then, multitudes of restaurants across the world have followed suit, attempting to build working desserts with meat in it. Today, bacon remains the most popular choice for meat in dessert. But with no real limits now, chefs can freely test ideas without getting scrutinized. Fancy some candied duck confit?
1. Crazy Burgers
2nd Floor‘s Sailor Jerry Burger
You cannot start cooking something without the foundation of the dish. Prior to cooking, one needs to know what to make. Will the customer eat food with a knife and fork, or with bare hands? Understanding the template changes the dish completely, and even after selecting the template, building the dish can go any way. With the recent surge of gastropubs, people now look at hamburgers as something gourmet instead of something cheap from fast food places. As a basic template, restaurants can freely throw whatever they want onto a patty and call it a hamburger. Would you like some peanut butter, jelly, bacon, and hot sauce on that burger? How about some pork belly and barbacoa beef? Have you have a burger with chicken and waffles on it? I have tried all of these, and will never stop searching for the ultimate burger. No limit exists in the creation of a hamburger, only that the chef or cook uses a meat (or meat substitute) patty. Erase any preconceived notions you may have about hamburgers. Forget about fast food chains or chain restaurants that will not cook your burger medium rare. You owe yourself a fine (medium rare) burger with toppings that synergize with the patty. Extravagant toppings make the burger look epic, but if they overpower the burger, then you ordered an open-faced sandwich.
A Punk, A Camera, and An Empty Stomach 