This was published 7 years ago
From wraps to bowls - sorting the real food trends from the gimmicks
By KIM SEVERSON
Remember when wraps seemed revolutionary? Maybe you had one on your way home from an Alanis Morrisette concert in 1996.
Then you shifted into a comforting pot-roast period, followed by the martini and cupcake years. In the mid-2000s, perhaps you pivoted into a complete rejection of carbs then slid into the bacon era. Who could forget 2010, when you stood in line at a food truck playing Angry Birds on your new iPad? That line would give way to the Cronut line, the ramen line, the poke line and now the line starting over there by the empanada stand.
Jackfruit in everything in 2017 Credit: Jessica Prescott
Each December, lists of culinary forecasts pour forth from public relations companies trying to elevate their profiles, food companies looking to sell more food and professional associations hoping to guide chefs as they try to translate the zeitgeist into menu items.
Of course, the wide and bumpy field of food-trend prognostication has its share of players who build forecasts on research both qualitative and quantitative and to whom sociology matters more than popularity. Still, the practice is more art than science, often based on not much more than noting what is already percolating in big cities.
"A good trend list requires everything from data and science to pure intuition," said Dana Cowin, a former editor-in-chief of Food & Wine who presided over the magazine's food prediction team for 21 years.
Before we get too deep into how the nation's top food-trend oracles practice their dark arts, you probably want to know what's hot for 2017.
Jackfruit! Sorghum! Harissa! And don't ignore horseradish, spirulina and Asian-inspired breakfasts.
If you're sceptical, there is good reason. Some predictions will never come true. Others may, if only because they are mentioned so often that consumers succumb to fomo (fear of missing out) and give in.
"True food trends move at kind of a glacial pace," said Annika Stensson, director of research communications for the National Restaurant Association. "It can take a decade or more to reach the mainstream."
For 11 years, Ms Stensson has helped compile the association's annual culinary forecast, based on a survey of about 1300 chefs. She is particularly proud of her early success in predicting the explosion in bite-size desserts.
This year's list, which includes novel cuts of meat like the Vegas strip steak, healthy children's meals and street food, may seem dated. But that's the idea. A fleeting fad is too frivolous to build a business on.
A perfect on-trend restaurant for 2017, Ms Stensson said, would be a fast-casual spot serving dishes with deep, heady African flavours. The dishes should be made with locally produced ingredients.
"A good trend is like an Impressionist painting," Ms Cowin says. "It's something that looks like one thing, and then you dive in and see; it's really a collection of many little points of paint."
Buddha bowl