Text: Gill Hyslop. Article from the February 2014 issue of Food and Home Entertaining Magazine.
If we are what we eat, it’s about to get very weird.
In the last few years, we’ve leap-frogged from ‘baconmania’ to ‘frovo’. so the recent sweet and savoury craze hasn’t been too outrageous to stomach. Neither was the fact that urnami (punted by Heston Blumenthal for years) finally piqued, but what did surprise were the old-favourite combos like peanut butter and jelly, and pickles and bacon that unusually wound up in vodka, rum and even whisky brands! So, how exactly will we top this in 2014?
According to Synergy Flavors’ executive research chef, Greg Kaminski, craft beers will dip into the flavour pool with salacious new variations like ginger beer, crème brûlée and banana nut bread. Synergy is a major flavour manufacturer, operating in numerous countries around the world. Still on beverages, US market researcher Innova Market Insights forecasts that super-fruits will maintain their esteem, particularly pomegranate, followed by acai, litchi, soursop, prickly pear and our very own home-grown marula. The demand will be for ‘true to fruit’ flavours – au naturel honey, not enhanced – with exotics like jackfruit mincing up to the plate.
Each year, global flavour conglomerates reveal their trend predictions
New York-based leader in proprietary flavour technology, Comax Flavors’ flavour prediction centre, the Culinary Trend Exchange, has conveniently segmented the flavours for 2014 into four themes: Fresh Focused, Sultry Sweets, Some Like it Hot and Reasons to Cheer. The first brings to the fore those that promote the feelgood factor, like coconut lime, lemon garlic pepper, carrot watermelon and pineapple cucumber. Sultry Sweets is exactly what it sounds like: uber decadent, giving rise to more provocative sweet/savoury blends like cola cappuccino nut, marshmallow macadamia crunch, ginger sesame caramel and maple bourbon banana. Thankfully, last year’s fascination with ghost peppers (10 000 times hotter than Tabasco) has quenched itself, but heat tamed by sweet notes will continue to be courted with amazing pairings like sriracha chocolate, black pepper caramel, honey wasabi and habanera maple. Reasons to Cheer reflects the popularity of creative mixologists who are enthusing the cocktail crowd with decadent indulgences like shiraz truffle, beaujolais citrus punch, mojito macaroon and boozy mint cookie.
Sterling-rice group – out-of-the-box creatives who specialise in intergrated brand strategies – has identified 10 top trends, compiled by a team of over 100 US chefs, Restaurateurs and Foodies, which will undoubtedly be preened by the restaurant scene. Flavour trends in 2014 will see a continuation of healthy options, with an occasional splurge, but in paticular:
Lemon shines as a main ingredient in its purest, freshest juice or preserved form.- Black and green brews bring a teatime twist to dinner and desserts.
- Middle Eastern seasonings like sumac, za’atar and marash will expand boundaries.
- Dairy-free milk made from cashews, almonds and peanuts.
- The creamy egg yolk adds richness previously provided by cheese and dairy.
Upscale classic salads take centre plate over burgers and fries.- Smoky liquids, wine, coffee and beer replace water and salt-infused stocks.
- Seaweed moves beyond sushi into a snack in its own right.
- Novel noodles emerge in alternative flours and new shapes.
- Exotic meats like goat, rabbit and pigeon, raised by small-scale producers, are the new proteins to plate.
There’s a revolution taking place that’s reshaping not only what we eat. but the way we eat it. While harried consumers demand convenience, they also want that “I made it myself artisanal experience by performing the last step of the preparation, unlike the glut of ready-made meals that go directly from supermarket shelf to microwave. And, thanks to chefs like René Redzepi of award-winning Danish restaurant Noma, foraging has developed a certain je ne sais quoi. But a real futuristic development that could appear soon in a kitchen near you is 3D-printed food – in fact, several companies are already experimenting with ingredients like chocolate and pasta to form a sort of edible ink. l itis will make the lab-grown burger positively obsolete. Hot diggity dog!
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