Food Network-crazed media experts’ voracious appetite for the next best thing in food mimics the nightly trials of an addict looking for a fix. In the case of 2011 and years past, the fix for the day was fat, glorious, glistening renderings of fat. Remember last year’s pan-fried chicken revival, and 2010’s burger craze? In addition to some of the most consequential, fat foraged eating habits relished in recent years was the elitist and extravagant molecular gastronomy movement, sating your appetite if only for a moment while leaving your checkbook fraught with $300.00 tasting menu price tags. Forget all that. If 2012 proves to break every promise uttered, rest assured it remembers just one concerning food trends; the dismissal of overindulgence.
Increasingly murky economic outlook for this year has yielded noticeable trends among consumers and the phrase of the day has become “perceived value.” This consumer vernacular could translate the demise of once popular and posh steakhouses and Italian restaurants where pairing a $50 steak to a $100 barrolo is considered the norm. Don’t look forward to many more chefs celebrating the grand, 16-course sit down that drain entire evenings along with your pocket book. Contrarily, this year’s cuisine will focus more on easy to understand and affordable dishes which focus on one or two artisan ingredients signifying its relevance. Hence the phrase, “perceived value.”
Along with wallet-conscious consumers comes the ever-increasing gravitation of those interested in healthy, locally sourced and organic cuisine. Years in the making, the farm to fork movement has come to define the food world, lending consumers a place of origin to picture when considering their next dining experience. Antibiotic-free, wild, free-range and local have become synonymous with health and environmentally conscious decision-making, easing the guilt of consumers regarding their carbon footprint and their diet. With rising food costs coupled with enormous increases in energy cost and consumption, the local food movement might prove to be as rewarding as it is cost effective for restaurant chefs. Look forward to restaurant/ farms and simple comfort dishes proudly proclaiming the origin of its ingredients.
This year might mark the return of humility to the food industry in terms of health and economic consciousness, but not in terms of value.