Could artisanal cheese be the new charcuterie? Sea buckthorn the new acacia berry? Drinkable snacks the new vitamin water? Chefs and industry experts are betting on it, predicting they’ll become some of this year’s hottest food trends.
Here’s a taste of what – and how – you might be eating in 2011:
1. Vegetable ash: The tradition of using ash as an ingredient goes back decades, possibly even centuries. Today, it’s most commonly used in cheese-making to form a natural protective coating and add a vein of flavour. But chefs (notably Grant Achatz, chef of Alinea in Chicago) have recently begun reintroducing ash into dishes, such as apple cider gel in walnut milk and vegetable ash.
“It’s definitely another thing, like cooking with hay, that’s coming back into vogue,” says Jonathan Gushue, executive chef at Langdon Hall in Cambridge, Ont.
Mr. Gushue makes vegetable ash out of carrots, onions and the tough, fibrous green tops of leeks. He grills them until they’re nearly black and then bakes them in the oven until they’re completely dehydrated. He then mixes the ash with cold-pressed canola oil or soybean oil to create a sauce that he serves with lobster or crab. The ash brings a bit of an acidic taste, not to mention a new, unexpected flavour, to the rich protein, he says.
2. Olive oil alternatives: “We did go through a whole olive oil craze,” says Laura Calder, cookbook author and host of the television show French Food at Home. “But olive oil is not the only oil any more.”
Ms. Calder says she loves using walnut, hazelnut and untoasted almond oils in salads, on quinoa and drizzled on top of crab.
Mr. Gushue prefers oils like sunflower, soybean and hemp that are produced locally. He uses hemp oil made in southern Ontario, for example, to sous-vide beef rib-eye.
3. Locally grown global produce: Thanks in large part to the exploding demand for locally sourced food, growers are now producing fruits and vegetables that traditionally aren’t thought of as local, such as bok choy, black salsify and Jerusalem artichoke, says Paul Knechtel, president and co-founder of 100 Mile Market Inc. His Kitchener, Ont.-based company buys from producers and sells to retail clients.
Until now, the market for foreign produce has largely been supplied by imports. But as the systems for distributing local food develop, growers now have the incentive to produce and the means to sell just about anything you can find in the imported section of the grocery store, Mr. Knechtel says.
“The whole local food movement has moved now … to very much a market segment, beyond a market niche,” he says.
4. Sea buckthorn: The health-food community has long recognized the nutritional benefits of the antioxidant-rich, orange berries of sea buckthorn shrubs. But chefs are now catching on, using them for their unique, citrus-like flavour, Mr. Knechtel says.
“We’ve probably sold 10 times the volume of sea buckthorn this year than we did last year and we’ve probably tripled our customers who are using it,” he says, noting he supplies restaurants like Globe Bistro and Earth restaurant in Toronto and Langdon Hall with the ingredient.
Mr. Knechtel describes the berries as sweet, tart and versatile, suitable for cocktails, with poultry or dessert, and with just about anything else in place of lemons or oranges.
5. Drinkable snacks: Executives at PepsiCo are betting that busy consumers want satiating and nutritious beverages that can double as snacks.
“We see the emerging opportunity to ‘snackify’ beverages and ‘drinkify’ snacks as the next frontier in food and beverage convenience,” Indra Nooyi, PepsiCo’s chairwoman and chief executive said in a news release, announcing the company’s acquisition of a stake in Russian dairy and juice company Wimm-Bill-Dann Foods last month.
