Trendy Food

Around this time, magazines and websites round up the food trends of the previous year and predict the food trends of the upcoming year.  Before I moved to NYC, I never thought of any particular type of food as something that could be trendy.  If you like cheeseburgers, won't you always like them?  Why would you eat more or less of them due to a trend?  Wouldn't your stomach get mad at you for depriving it of something delicious just because it wasn't trendy?

As I dig deeper into the meaning of food trendiness, I realize that food trendiness is about taking an existing food and watching chefs, restaurants, and home cooks interpret this food in several different ways, thereby making it trendy to try the different versions of this trendy food.  It really helps a particular dish or restaurant staple evolve when there is a demand to see that dish turn into something even more desirable than its previous form. 

Lets use the cupcake trend as an example.  Cupcakes have always been cake-like desserts with a nice frosting top.  Some cupcake places have become stand-outs in this city, like Magnolia (I think the frosting there tastes too much like putting an entire stick of butter in your mouth) and Billy's Bakery.  About 2 years ago, cupcakes became a hot trend.  Everyone wanted them from some place awesome and unique.  This handheld dessert was wanted by many.  So, how did cupcakes become trendy?  They evolved into several different forms, making dessert lovers eager to try as many different cupcakes as possible.  There was Cupcake Stop, the cupcake food truck, which heavily relied on social media to gain a great food truck following.  There was the mini cupcake, the somewhat diet friendly version of eating a cupcake.  And then cupcakes became like ice cream, with more flavors than you could imagine.  Baked by Melissa is the ultimate example of the cupcake trend, selling mini cupcakes in flavors like cookie dough and peanut butter and jelly.  Although trends fade, cupcakes generally became a more interesting dessert due to the trend. 

Food trends are quite powerful.  They tell us what we want to eat.  They also put up a bar of comparison for restaurants and food shops.  It is hard to eat a really great NYC hamburger and not automatically compare it to a similarly delicious burger or contrast it with a burger you find overpriced and weak.  With the amount of choices in NYC, we tend to enjoy everything relative to other things we have eaten.  A successful restaurant has to stand out from other restaurants, but also has to compare to other restaurants so guests say "I like to go to X restaurant because their calamari is so much better than Y and Z restaurants." 

When I think of it this way, it makes me want certain foods to become trendy, so that they will pop up everywhere in different incarnations.  I think Mac N' Cheese could use a good run as a trend.  You see it at soul food places, or in its own form at places like S'Mac, but it has not reached its peak.  People love Mac N' Cheese, and I am sure diners would like to see samplers like they have at the restaurant Cafeteria.  Anyone interested in helping me start this trend?

A food trend that I have indulged in is the meatball trend.  For Christmas, I got The Meatball Shop Cookbook.  I tested it out yesterday by making delicious pork meatballs, and they were awesome.  This meatball trend made me think a lot about having meatball dinner parties.  The fact that New Yorkers are so into meatballs makes you think about this particular food in a completely different way, realizing just how many kinds of balls you can make and the variety of ways you can serve them.  Tune in later this week for more on my meatball making adventure and why I am totally down with the meatball trend.

Comment with your favorite food trends or hopeful food trends for the coming year!

Have a delicious day!
NYC Menu Girl