Food Trends 2017

How hip are you?

The Accidental Locavore has been inundated with emails predicting food trends for 2017.

Let’s look at some of them.

My gift to you is that this isn’t a slide show (you can thank me in the comments).

Food Trends to resolve to do:

• Use all food! Food waste is a huge issue and you’re going to hear a lot about it this year.
• Buy what you’re going to use. Use it.
• Shop your freezer, fridge, cupboards, pantry. You’ll be surprised how much you can make without ever leaving the house. I made 23 dinners with just the stuff in my freezer.

Things trending that you might ACTUALLY make:

• Bowls-grain, rice, porridge, poke. Put a bunch of vegetables, a carb and a protein in a bowl and you’re trendy. Extra points for poké (pronounced po-kay). A good way to use up small bits of things in your fridge.
• Hey if you haven’t given up kale yet, you could be a newbie to cauliflower. Or if you really want to be cutting edge, skip down to jackfruit below.

Or cook with:

• Sous-vide. I’ve had mine for a few years and love it. It’s the crockpot of the 21^st
• Or maybe it’s the Instapot.

Foods you might think about and eat but come on, you’re never actually going to DIY:

• Fermented foods (from any number of sources). Imagine if everyone in your building started fermenting stuff. Click here for unscented Febreze.
• Whey (to get this you have to make something else, like Greek yogurt) and then figure out what to do with it. I’ve marinated chicken in it—ho hum.
• Vegetable chips (your own, not out of a bag)
• Empanadas, dumplings etc. All good but labor intensive and someone in a restaurant near you does it better.

Interesting, never-happening options:

• Octopus — got a rock to pound it on? Didn’t think so.
• Naan pizza. Why?
• Fry bread. Ditto. Have you ever actually eaten the stuff? Think flattened, fried zeppole and you’re pretty much there. Going to go out on a politically incorrect limb here, but the Native Americans have not given us much to work with food-wise. Indian Pudding and frybread are two prime examples.
• Jackfruit. Don’t hold your breath waiting for that to show up at your local supermarket. And when it does…

A couple of my predictions:

• Coffeecake — oh, excuse me, breakfast cake. I’ve had my friend Alan’s mother’s coffeecake recipe on my mind lately. Time for breakfast comfort food?
• The resurgence of junk food — look for the new White House Chef to be Colonel Saunders…

What do you think? Any food trends you’d like to add, or see the last of? Overplayed already?