As a cooking teacher, I have been hearing about new trends in cooking and food at food fairs for years. In this last forum I attended, the trends are very clear and go towards the plant-based world in any direction, be it living room, kitchen or pastry shop. In any area, vegetables have their place and also a great place. Vegetables have the power to make everything better, to improve it and even to be superior to other options. The plant world has given us that fresh air that dishes need and that innocent joy that awakens the senses.
But this path has not arrived now, we already know. The entry has been gradual but established. And it is here to stay because it is the solution to visual boredom, to the explosion of taste and above all to the certain desire to improve our health. If there are no vegetables there is no health. And they have it all.
The trend towards vegetables is closely linked to health, something essential today. The experience of a pandemic as a human being has highlighted our vulnerability and immunity to viruses and bacteria. This has accelerated the process of veganism and vegetarianism that was coming slowly since they are the foods that supply us with vitamins and minerals and build a wall against free radicals, malignant cells or any other destructive microorganism.
Restaurateurs need to sell health and customers crave it while enjoying a meal and socializing. Without artificial colors or aromas, naturalness is what rules today as a social good. Other points that the client needs, and I say needs because that is the word (perhaps ambitious but very true) is to see that the food is used in the season in which it is harvested. Well, it has its explanation, since each food has its season of the year, its optimal time to be consumed and enhance its functions as a nutritious food. During its harvest season, the food itself carries maximum nutrients and is accompanied by the colors of this period of time. Each color is a different vitamin, a different nutrient appropriate to our human needs in the most common possible health repair at that time, such as colds in winter accompanied by vitamin C from oranges.
Another trend in food is that we like familiar flavors, traditional dishes that have been modernized. Let’s think that they are flavors and mixtures of known ingredients and, furthermore, we like them. Tradition is synonymous with know-how and many chefs and cooks rescue dishes and flavors that we have engraved in our retina. So, it is a safe value that we also have the obligation to preserve. It is our cultural legacy, and the mothers who fed us those delicacies are disappearing and with them all their knowledge. Knowing that it came to them generationally because they are women, that caring for children is an obligation of a patriarchal system. They were survivors of food precariousness and knew, better than us, how to feed themselves and preserve nature at the same time.
And this marks the next trend, the sustainability of the product, knowing where it comes from and how it has been collected is essential. As well as that it is not wasted in its preparation process. Nowadays we want to know that everything is used and that our hands or the place where said food has been collected are completely clean. Made with the most natural products possible. Although I often differ on this point. Society is not yet prepared, gastronomically and culturally speaking, to want to know what pesticides are in the product of the land it is going to consume or whether the European glyphosate law is finally repealed. There is still a long way to go but we must inform ourselves more, take more interest in the field really at all levels because in the end it will be on our tables and menus. Always buying products from our country is supporting our farmers, taking an interest in their work, too.
As for desserts, the sweet part of the menus, there are some trends that are linked to all those we have mentioned. To begin with, we have become less sweet and therefore we do not want the added sweet to mask the natural tastes and if it can be a healthier sugar, the better. They are sugars in which their flavor is milder, composed of molasses and intrinsic flavors rich in nutrients with aromas of licorice or cinnamon.
The portions are also less copious, simple and light preparations, few ingredients, natural flavors, ultimately healthier.
We also love finding different textures in the same dish as well as different temperatures. This comes from long ago, it is nothing new. We have a classic of French cuisine “Crêppes Suzette” where we find a crêppe flambéed with Grand Marnier and topped with a scoop of vanilla ice cream. Truly one of the best desserts I know.
The word surprise amazes us. It’s like giving us a gift without knowing it in advance and a great personal experience. And as? With vegetables. Its use is increasingly more frequent and natural in desserts, such as pumpkins, sweet potatoes, beets and even celery or cucumber. And now to surprise you, use cooking techniques associated with salty cuisine such as grilled peaches or smoked yogurt sauce.
Restaurant dessert is different from that of a pastry shop. And we like to appreciate that difference as a variety of the gastronomic world. This must consist, as a non-imposed rule, of a solid part or main element, a crunch, a sauce, as well as aerated elements or foams. And in general it should be a moist dessert, easy to eat, unctuous on our taste buds for this final part of the meals in which there is always room.
As for the living room, the trend also comes from the plant world. New drinks have been introduced for the customer who does not want alcohol. Natural drinks such as the homemade kombucha from “Les Cols” in Olot with a beet or ginger flavor, more sustainable wines, non-alcoholic cocktails, more natural beers, infusions from the skin of the coffee bean or its flower and ultimately a world more careful with our health.
Food trends depend on us, the customers. The studies are a summary of what the customer wants (dessert trend study; Puratos). We must be aware that every time we order a dish, a menu, a coffee, a drink, the choice of a restaurant, its type of service, stop going to a tavern, buy one food or another, speak well of an establishment or criticize it, we are collaborating in each action and supporting an entire system. Our choice and each one of them is more important than we think and the future of gastronomy is in our hands, encompassing as such an entire system that is nourished by this wonderful world of food: restaurants, bars, farmers, fishermen. , nutritionists and even doctors. Because the choice is going to end up in our body, but we will talk about that topic another day.
