Food Trends Summary

Here's the list of food trends to watch that we came up with on Day 1. Feel free to add any new trends that you see emerging.

Eat Your Words Food Trends to Watch in 2009

• Chocolate: single estate, organic, flavoured, nutriceutical, etc.

• Charcuterie: cured, salted, smoked meats

• Fresh herbs and edible flowers / balcony herb gardens

• South American / Latin food

• Oysters

• Sustainable seafood and fish: See A Good Catch: Sustainable Seafood Recipes from Canada’s Top Chefs, published by Greystone Books/David Suzuki Foundation, 2008; and Bottomfeeder: How to Eat Ethically in a World of Vanishing Seafood by Taras Grescoe, published by Harper Collins, 2008
  

• Real Bread

• Glamorizing traditional, rustic, “peasant” dishes and especially cuts of meat

• Classic cocktails are back: Cocktails with bitters, and obscure mixes like Frenet Branca
  

• Back to the Table movement / Slow Food

• Raw Food (though it’s still fringe, but we’re seeing more prepared foods touting raw food ingredients and sections of specialty grocery stores

• Mainstreaming of the “groceraunt” (ie. Sobey’s oyster bar and in-store restaurant); "Almost cooking"
  

• “Snout to tail” cooking / meats
  
  
• Heirloom beans; ties in with the seed-saving trend, concerns about maintaining biodiversity

• Slow Cooker / batch-cooking / community kitchens

• Do-it-yourself cooking / preserving and canning