Top 10 Food Trends of 2011
It’s that time of year when everyone has eaten so much they can hardly move and has decided that come the 1st of January it is officially diet time.
But how about doing something different in the New Year by hosting your own food and drink tasting party from the comfort of your own home!! Who wants to diet when you can try all this lovely food?
The creative team at My Secret Kitchen, the UK’s first food and drink tasting company, says that 2011 will be the year for “twisting traditional favourite flavours, becoming more knowledgeable about the foods around us and thinking even more about what we are putting in our mouths.”
So take a look at their list of the Top 10 food trends of 2011 and start cooking up a storm in your kitchen. Just remember to send me an invite of course!
1 – Reduction – sodium, sugar and the “undesirables” ie the ingredients that are not understood by the masses. If it’s not in the pantry it’s going to be kicked out.
2 – Citrus Twists – Not the usual orange and lemon but Yuzu, Pomelo, Tangerine, Bergamot will be seen more often as people want familiarity but with a little twist.
3 – Hedgerows – Local produce will continue to flourish, including the flavours of Rose, Blackberry, Elderflower, Rosehip, Elderberry and Sloe.
4 – Smoking, toasting and roasting - The trend for increased authenticity in the food that people eat along with an increased willingness to experiment will mean people looking at roasted and toasted spices and smoked oils to add the extra flavour to the occasion.
5 – Good tasting functional foods – Just because something is good for you doesn’t mean it is going to taste good! Look out for ingredients that are yummy and healthy in 2011.
6 – Eat in and entertain – More cooking shows, especially when they are focussed on entertaining at home will mean a rise in the dinner party experience. This will also mean more “one-upmanship”; more complicated recipes, more extreme foods, as Mrs Smith becomes even more determined to outdo Mr Jones’s last dinner party efforts.
7 – Extreme BBQs – From authentic Brazilian and Korean delicacies for the BBQ to the other end of the extreme where people will focus solely on traditional local produce from the butcher round the corner with locally produced sauces and marinades from the farmers markets and local delis.
8 –Respect – Continued research in what people are eating along with education in the food chain will mean a surge in fair-trade and free range, although not necessarily organic
9 – Where else can we discover? – What will be the new country that will explode into our everyday cooking lives? Mexican and Thai will continue to rise and are here to stay, North African continues its path upwards, but what’s the next big country? Difficult to predict as this trend tends to follow people’s holiday destinations and we all know this has reduced over the last couple of years. If we were to stick our necks out we’d go South American – Brazilian, Argentinean and Peruvian.
10 – Chocolate and … - Chocolate has had quite a lot of good publicity recently with regards to its health properties; provenance, cocoa solids levels, natural processing and the like. Chilli and chocolate combination has become almost the norm with the Walkers launch last year. More flavours will be combining with chocolate next year – lime, raspberry, cherry and for the more daring will bacon and chocolate become seen as it is the States? Somehow we think we have a few years ahead of us before that happens in the UK….
For more information visit www.mysecretkitchen.co.uk
