Food trends: Is 2012 the year of the potato?
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Fingerling potatoes.
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According to the Chinese zodiac, 2012 will be the Year of the Dragon.
But according to the crystal balls of more than one watcher of food trends, it also will be "The Year of the Potato."
So sayeth Andrew Freeman & Co., a San Francisco-based hospitality and restaurant consulting firm. Its detailed annual trends report, dubbed the "Passion Collection," elaborates thusly:
"Watch out for french fry menus that let guests choose the cut, crispness, and sauce; make-your-own mashers with mix-ins; or custom-cut chips with dusts and dips to order. Everyone's chipping in." And it gives a San Francisco example: The french fry menu at Jasper's Corner Tap & Kitchen.
Our own trends maven, Marlene Parrish, also is looking at the coming year and seeing spuds. "After years of banishment by skinny Atkins diet types and low-carb pushers, potatoes are becoming fashionable again," she predicts. "In restaurants, spuds will get the spotlight as if they are something new -- mashed with variations, baked with custom-built toppings, french-fried with benefits. Legume Bistro in Oakland is ahead of the curve; look for their tallow fries on the menu. Translation: potato sticks fried in beef fat, and oh, are they fabulous. The only improvement on that will be any potato fried in duck fat, sometimes called liquid gold."
The potatoheads could be on to something: Dining critic China Millman raves over the pork fat fries she had not long ago at Bite Bistro in Bellevue, and reports that Kevin Sousa plans to offer both duck-fat fries and vegan fries at his soon-to-open-in-East Liberty Station Street Hot Dogs.
"At home," Marlene continues, "I have my own potato thing going on, cooking my way through '300 Best Potato Recipes,' by Kathleen Sloan-Mcintosh, a book from Robert Rose publishers of Canada. [See recipe for Pan-Fried Sweet Potatoes with Gremolata at end of story.] The book is written with wit, clarity and a Ph.D.'s worth of depth and knowledge."
We're not sure we can say the same thing about all of the many food trend predictions that cross our desks here at Food & Flavor, but we do enjoy reading them -- several of the trends already are being reflected here in Pittsburgh -- and we thought you might, too.
So here, passed on from several sources and with several grains of artisanal salt, are some forecasts for food in 2012.
Fresh sardines. Ultra-long dry aging of meat. Uni. Yuzu. Tamarind. Ox tail. Duck will make a comeback, but not slathered with orange marmalade. Hand-made ricotta and burrata. Kalbi, bibimbap, bulgogi. Huacatay (better look it up). Bone marrow. Flowers reappearing on dinner plates. Hibiscus. Arepas. Coconut oil. Goat meat crosses the border from ethnicnabes. Shiso. Nordic cooking and ingredients. Upscale restaurants re-tenanting shopping center food courts. Lamb ribs and belly. Bao. More entries into the tossed salad restaurant business, using ever better ingredients. Nduja. Micro-distilleries. Bacalao. Large displays of exotic bitters on the bar. Crazier taco fillings migrating from food trucks to restaurants. Green papaya. Seaweed in non-Asian dishes.
-- Baum+Whiteman International Restaurant Consultants
Phil Lempert, who runs supermarketguru.com, has been doling out his annual food forecasts (with ConAgra Foods, one of the companies he works with). Some are not at all surprises, such as a continued rise in food prices and more integration of mobile devices and social media into food shopping and dining out.
But one of his more offbeat ones and intriguing ones is:
• Listen for the sound of food: People judge the readiness of some foods (like microwave popcorn or grilled burgers) by the sounds the foods make. Multisensory perception will be one of the new "food sciences" in 2012, as psychologists and food scientists join forces to design, create and influence the sounds of our foods to convey freshness, taste and even health attributes.
First Published January 5, 2012 12:00 am
