Fantastic Food Trends

Sept. 16, 2016

WHAT’S NEXT

2015 was all about cold brew coffee, avocado toast, fried chicken sandwiches, and poke (the marinated raw fish dish popular in Hawaii). So what are the latest foods and beverages to taste before 2017 arrives? Here’s a sample:

1. SUPER SEAWEED

Poised to take full advantage of a foodie’s favorite adjective of late – umami, the buzzword for complex savory flavors – seaweed is the ocean vegetable everyone’s talking about. It’s not only readily available and fairly easy to harvest but also offers both depth of flavor and loads of fiber, vitamins, and iodine. Perhaps you’ve already noticed the flood of new seaweed treats in shops, such as Annie Chun’s new Seaweed Crisps, which hit store shelves last month and blend brown-rice and seaweed for a gluten-free crunchy snack. SeaSnax Chomperz blends seaweed with rice flour and add flavors like barbecue, onion, and jalapeno. And GimME Organic is offering up Roasted Seaweed Snacks with sea salt and sesame oil. Further helping seaweed’s land game? A Danish study in the journal Phycologia reported that adding seaweed to your diet can help lower blood pressure and have a positive effect on health.

2. OUTRAGEOUS OATMEAL

If your idea of oatmeal is a bowl of minute oats stuffed into the microwave and sprinkled with white sugar, it’s time to start thinking differently. Steel-cut oats have been around for a quite a while, and many places put a twist on the old fashioned favorite by adding different fruits or baking it, á la the Green House Cafe in Traverse City, but the next trend might surprise you. Chefs are approaching oats much like they do quinoa, topping the former vehicle for sweet with savory items like fried eggs, cheese, bacon – or as recently seen in the The New York Times’ "City Kitchen" section – even teaming it up with sautéed greens and garlic.

3. COOLER COFFEE

If you thought last year’s cold brew trend was big, you’ll be surprised at how much it’s already diversified. Caffeine is surfacing in a multitude of different forms, including fizzy carbonated coffee drinks at a variety of retailers, and "fitness" coffees like Chike High-Protein Coffee, which arrives in a juicebag-shaped container that offers two shots of espresso, 20 grams of protein, and 23 vitamins and minerals. Midwest favorite Caribou Coffee, which has a new line of bottled, ready-todrink iced coffees in flavors like vanilla and sea-salt caramel, is the first national coffee chain to launch Nitro Cold Press, which adds nitrogen bubbles to its cold press coffee for a smoother brew. And draft beer is so yesterday – now, it’s all about draft coffee from places like Caribbean Coffee, which offers coffee in Nitro Craft Draft kegs. Yes, kegs.

4. SOBER SOPHISTICATION

In other beverage news, U.K. food trends predictions from The Food People point out that fewer people are consuming alcohol overall, and those who don’t are wearying of the only other options being sodas or teas. How about water? Too boring? Not in these new bottled varieties. A recent browse through an upscale supermarket offered up True Nopal cactus water, said to have been inspired by the people of the Sonoran Desert; two varieties of birch tree water (Sealand Birk and Säpp), both rich in potassium, zinc, and magnesium; DrinkMAPLE maple water, bottled direct from the tree; and Blk – a black-colored alkaline water infused with minerals. Even coconut water is getting edgy – you can now find varieties like pina colada, pineapple, and white chocolate.

5. ROCKIN’ RAMEN

If you’ve got a dollar, you can probably go and snag a trio of ramen noodle packets from your local grocery right now. But true ramen noodles are a far cry from its bastardized brethren, and the Western World is catching on. Both New York and L.A. now boast dozens of ramen shops, and Philadelphia’s Hiro Ramen House upscales the dish with traditional Asian additions like pickled ginger, marinated pork, and half-boiled eggs. Gaijin in Traverse City is offering inspired ramen bowls right here in Northern Michigan, and while the shop might be small, its flavors and fresh take on ramen would no doubt do Tsuta – the tiny nine-seat ramen cafe in Tokyo that was the first ramen shop granted a Michelin star – proud.

6. FILIPINO FOODSTUFFS

Mashable and Thrillist are among those touting foods from the Philippines as some of the Next Big Things for 2017. Ube is perhaps one of the most accessible; it’s a tubular yam-like root that’s purple – and with purple being said to be a hot color in food for next year, that root is right on trend. With its unusual sugary taste, ube is being used in items like donuts, ice cream, and puddings. Food blogger The Bakeanista recently showcased Ube cake with coconut frosting on her site. Pinoy BBQ is another snack gaining ground. Popular in the Philippines as a street food, pinoy is pork flavored with soy sauce, lemon, garlic, brown sugar, banana ketchup, and black pepper, then barbecued on bamboo skewers. Finally, there’s Filipino lumpia, which resembles an egg roll of thin, crepe-like pastry skin filled with chopped veggies and minced meat.