Trend Alert: Getting rid of bad food writing clichés

In our Eat Your Words course that just finished on Saturday, we had a running list of culinary writing clichés that really need to be locked in the basement for a very long time. (Yes, you are allowed to trot them out if you are trying to make a point, be ironic or funny, or if they are in keeping with the "voice" of a passage.)

Dianne Jacob, author of Will Write For Food, was obviously thinking along the same lines as we were. Her November 15, 2010, post, "The Worst Food Writing Words" has received 99 comments to date. My favorite "worst" is drinkerie. Gag.

Oh and anyone in the Edmonton area who would like a copy of Dianne Jacob's newly revised and updated book Will Write For Food: The Complete Guide to Writing Cookbooks, Blogs, Reviews, Memoir, and More (2nd edition, 2010) on the fundamentals of good culinary writing can contact me. I have two more copies to sell from my big box of books.

Eat Your Words Class of 2010/2011 - Food Trends

(Above photo via Julie Van Rosendaal's Cherpumple "cake / pie" hybrid as seen on Babble's Food blog. Dessert's answer to the turducken!)

Trend-spotting is a major part of any culinary writer's skill set. We talk about tuning into these trends and keeping a running list as we spot them. Here are the trends we compiled in class yesterday.

• pop-up restaurants
• “foodcations” (an off-shoot of the "staycation" trend)
  
• locavore
• raised wild game (elk, bison, wild boar, reindeer, etc)
  
• craft beer-and-food pairings
• ginger beer
• food security issues
• sustainability
• food ethics
• cupcakes or NOT (this is a trend that just won't die even when it's dead)
  
• macarons
• gastro-pubs
• covercharges at restaurants
• enomatic systems
• wine bars
• tapas – again
• raw milk
• lentils
• quinoa
• infused spirits
• bacon -- still, it's a mainstay trend
  
• meat-stuffed inside other meats trend, and in fact, any food stuffed inside other foods (see yesterday's Wall Street Journal article featuring Calgary food writer Julie Van Rosendaal's Cherpumple dessert.)
  
• pork belly
• sugar backlash
• 80s fashion (so we're wondering how that will manifest itself in the food world)
  
• growth of casual fine dining (aka premium casual)

Here are some links to other trend lists:

• enRoute magazine's annual Food Issue (Nov 2010) list of trends noticed by writer Sarah Musgrave in EnRoute's Top Restaurant Trends 2010 (quail eggs, plums, pescuterie, radishes...)
  

• Epicurious' Food Trends for 2010 (homemade beer, butchery, Vancouver) Note this was a list for 2010 compiled in late 2009.
  

• The Globe & Mail's food predictions for 2011 (pie shops, smaller indy restaurants on a shoestring budget, "dirt" as an ingredient???)

• Here's what the Canadian Chefs Congress in May 2010 identified as major trends that professional chefs are seeing (edible ocean greens, sustainability ranking and certifications of ingredients like fish, underutilized species, etc.)

• 2010 food trends out of Australia (food cocooning at home; local across all sectors; need for treats; a little trade up; being squeaky clean to gain trust)

What are the trends on your radar? We'll add them to the list.

Via Twitter, we had a comment that waffles should be added to the list. Via Comments, Peter Bailey, the beer columnist for The Tomato and great book blogger, adds IPA and Imperial to our list of "in" beers for 2010/11. Thanks Pete.

And here's another trend round-up out of the UK: Food Trends to Peak in 2011: Special-needs, Urbanism, On-demand from The Independent Food & Drink pages.