Tag Archives: food trends

10 Food Blogging Trends That Need to End

bacon mallow pop 1

1.  Rehashing the rehashed recipes ad infinitum…

Here are some food trends that have been done to fucking DEATH: bacon, candied bacon, bacon jam, doughnuts (the new cupcake), kale chips, buffalo anything, pulled pork, quinoa, bacon in desserts, red velvet anything, chocolate chip cookies, cookie dough anything, loaded baked potato soup, green smoothies, anything with chia seeds, s’mores anything, homemade marshmallows, and sweet potato fries just to name a few.  You’re just following the fumes of trends that have been driven into the ground.

2.  Photos of food spilling and dripping over the sides of dishes.

It’s not arty – it’s gross.  It makes my fingers feel sticky and rather than wanting to grab a spoon or fork and eat your food I want to grab a sponge or a dish towel and clean up after you.

3.  Stuffing cookies with candy or other cookies.

Stuffing food inside other food.  This over-the-top stuffing of food inside other food has become one big gluttonous denial that heart attacks and diabetes could happen to YOU.

4. Supporting the packaged crap industry

There is apparently a continuous contest  to see how many ways one can cram processed crap into their home baked goods.  Disposing of whole bags of fun-size candy bars in a cake recipe is sick and needs to stop.  Please refer to #3.

5.  Hyperbolic food writing.

We get it – food can be emotional for some people.  Suggesting that a single dish of food is “life changing” is ridiculous.  Talking about food as though it can heal all the wounds of life is also ridiculous.  Be real.  Stop trying to flog emotions out of us with the promise of life-changing pasta.  We’re not simpletons.

6.  Striped paper straws

Time for a new prop for food photo shoots involving any kind of sweets or sweet beverages.  My eyes are so tired of seeing the same striped straws everywhere.  What annoys me about them aside from their ubiquity is the “old fashioned wholesomeness” bloggers seem to be implying as if jaunty little straws can neutralize the potential for heart disease and obesity represented on the endless parades of plates piled high with processed-crap-stuffed baked goods.

7. Fondant.

Fondant doesn’t taste good.  The first rule of food is that it should nourish your body.  The first rule of food worth talking about is that it also taste good.  If it neither nourishes nor tastes good it doesn’t matter how pretty it is, you may as well be sculpting cakes out of play-dough.

8. The evils of “mouth-feel”

Never describe to me how food will FEEL or ACT in my mouth (or in yours).  The second you start talking about food in people’s mouths I am imagining masticated food and that makes me lose my appetite which is the opposite of what your writing is trying to accomplish.  It’s not funny.  It truly grosses me out.  I don’t want a “party” or an “explosion” of any kind IN MY MOUTH.  So get out of my mouth, please, and keep me out of yours too.

9. Fluffy cake flavored drinks pretending to be martinis

Calling any beverage in a martini glass a martini.  It’s not the glass that makes it a martini – it’s the use of gin + vermouth  that makes it a martini.  The only other version of a martini that’s still a martini is vodka + vermouth.  If your drink contains anything else – it is most definitely NOT a martini so give it a new name.*

10.  The cast of characters ingredient shot.**

Unless you plan to not have an ingredient list with your recipe (which would be a dumb move) no one needs to see the ingredients all grouped together on your kitchen counter.  It adds insult to injury when every item in the photo is labeled – it suggests that your readers are so new to the world that they don’t know what butter looks like.  Trust me – we know it when we’re looking at eggs just like we understood what you meant when you listed “2 eggs” in the ingredient list.

*A splash of olive brine and a garnish of an olive or a lemon twist are the only other variations allowable for the drink to still bear the name “martini”.  If you’re using flavored vodkas – it’s not a martini.

**My friend Sarah’s words for it.  Brilliant.

Food Trends: Cookies are the New Peanut Butter

For years Americans have been desperately searching for an alternative to peanut butter that would be more like eating cookies and less like eating something that could be described as being “healthy”. This whole American obsession with healthy foods has gone out of control. Not even peanut butter packed with sugar and processed to a dreamy smoothness could beat the doldrums gripping the American breakfast table. And then a miracle of processing occurred:

 

Suddenly the sun was shining again, Americans began to enjoy  breakfast again!  There is nothing you can bake that wouldn’t be made better with a little cookie spread!  Picky Palate  has been the leading Biscoff trendsetter and moms across the country are thanking her for breaking the myth that cookies are “dessert”:

 

But just when you thought life, and by that I mean breakfast, couldn’t get better, Buns In My Oven has gone and brought the concept of cookies for EVERY meal to a whole new level.  Meet the Oreo Spread:

 

It’s like black gold.  It shimmers on your toast like the most expensive caviar.  It positively sets your body up with the proper energy to face the most exhaustive day.  No one will ever be able to say you don’t eat “right” in the morning again!  All you have to do is hand them this miracle of macerated cookies* on a wholesome slice of bread and they will never argue with you again.

I can’t wait to see which iconic cookie will next succumb to spreadable glory!

*After all, it really is a lot of work having to chew cookies yourself, with cookie spreads you get all the great flavor of the cookies without the irritation of having to chew them.

Food Trends: The Return Of The Twinkie

 

You might like to suggest that a “food” that has remained so steadily in the American consciousness doesn’t qualify as a trend but once any food finds its way onto a stick you know it’s hitting the big time and will make a guest appearance with bacon in the next couple of months.  Growing up in a hippie whole grain no-processed food household I was deprived of the opportunity to get my hands on these little treats until I was a young adult.  One afternoon  a supply of Twinkies showed up at my house via one of my room mates.  I know I had to have eaten one because the memory of that chemical aftertaste has stuck with me all these years.  More memorable than that was the experiment I conducted over the next several years in which I held onto a package of these spongy treats to see how long it would take for them to go bad.  But everyone already knows the result of that experiment: Twinkies are incapable of molding.  They just get drier and drier until they crumble when you show them to yet another disinterested house guest.  Why is no one ever as amazed as I am?

 

I predict that you will soon be seeing recipes for: Twinkies Charlotte, custard pie with a Twinkie crust, Bacon wrapped Twinkies on a stick, Twinkie Po’ Boys, Twinkies with cherries flambe, Twinkie bread pudding, and Twinkie stuffed rice krispy treats.