Brokedinner's Top 4 food trends of 2019
Alot can happen in one year. Equally, a relative sense of resonating ‘nothing’ can happen in one year. I’m sure there is a Brexit joke somewhere in there but I tactfully defer to my absence from blogging. To be fair 2019 felt like it took 20 minutes from start to finish but that is not an excuse. If you are reading this now and I am not new to you then it’s okay, you can say you missed me. I will accept that with charm and modesty.
Speaking of things missed, I did not miss creams split with green oils or nasturtiums. Do you remember when those were a thing? If you do then I am wondering if you are teary eyed or relieved that they were seemingly hurricane kicked into the shadow realm by progress and sound mind. If you were one of the frontiers or practitioners of either fad then I empathize with you and administer you no fault. I may, or may not, have chuckled to myself privately when you did BUT I’m also the kind of guy who laughs at a funeral. Dont judge me, maybe I am the one on the spaceship.
Trends are good. Let me get that out of the way. They keep our hunger for new things half satisfied and reassure innovation. Not all last the true test of time and remain not only relevant but manage to reinvigorate themselves periodically. As a result, some of the things I mentioned are far from new and this is not a list of anything necessarily groundbreaking. They are just currently popular, or on the verge of varying obscure popularity, for good reason. Those reasons will be discussed as I present
Brokedinner's Top 4 Food Trends of 2019
1. Fish cookery
Fish cookery has risen to rightful prominence in recent years with chefs like Nathan Outlaw, Tom Brown, Rene Redzipi, and the recent golden boy Josh Niland all showing just how exciting the offers of the sea can be. I am fully aware that highlight fish and seafood cookery is far from new at any level and I know what guys like Eric Ripert have done and continue to do. I am just the messenger here and I am telling you. Fish won 2019 and there is little more I need to argue in its case. Now go get my garum.
2. Foams (are back)
And this time they are being done properly. The foams are now not so much a named component on the dish as they were tactlessly done when apple airs, apricot clouds, shellfish espumas, lingonberry froths, and any other flavoured aeration was named. Gone are the times of 9 textures of bbeetroot and I do not blame anyone who jumped in on the fun and games. Heck I am guilty myself but now, it has much more finesse. Named foams are vestigial at best and welcomely replaced by llightly aerated sauces or more elegant nomenclature. It is no longer an expectation which could meet or skeet on your hope. Now when your scallops arrive the vermouth sauce with it is just a pleasantly light and visibly bubbly addition.
3. ‘Sandwiches'
Okay wait, hear me out. I am not advocating that a fried chicken burger should be acclaimed as a pinnacle of craftsmanship BUT it can be. Sort of. The part that is triggering any apprehensions you may rightfully have is fixed on the word sandwich. At its core a sandwich is just a vessel for anything and it is usually, but not necessarily, based around a type of bread. Do you know how many things that can mean? There are literally billions and billions of billions of possibilities just waiting to be tapped into and if you think about the fact that baos and pizza are sort of sandwiches then you might start to see your beautifully greased bacon and bap filled fist a little differently.
4. Darker shades
The way food looks is ever evolving but generally, every 5 years or so, the collective visual of niche specific cookery settles on a tone. There will always be either futurists or traditionalists who satisfy the role of progressivism and purity respectively the median had always favoured one thing. Colour. Colour was always an accepted necessity and often as chefs we added elements to otherwise complete dishes because we rightfully or wrongfully thought they might ‘need something green'. That ethos is more and more being abandoned in favour of creative restraint. It takes alot to say I wont put any micro corriander or nasturtiums leaves on my cherry glazed grouse with liver parfait and blackberry compote. Compounded with the ever growing popularity of earth tones in crockery and moody photography edits it looks like we could already be entering the culinary dark ages and it is oddly refreshing.
Doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different outcome is the definition of insanity. I admit that I may have read that on a Joker meme somewhere online it still rings true. I love trends until they become trendy. There is something exciting about being on the front line of ‘new'. While you risk the inevitable revisionist history of the future there is always the possibility that you can be one the lucky guys who not only can say and prove ‘I was one of the first to do that’. There is something about those guys that just seem like their dick's swing slowly with weight and vigor. I wanna be those guys. So should you
~Retraces his steps retrograde to time and begins to tamper with constants and coefficients~
