Culinary Trends for 2009

Posted by Jacqueline Church Dec 17, 2008

Looking back at 2008, it was a disastrous year in food safety. Tainted and poisoned food, e. coli contaminated produce, melamine and other toxins pouring into our grocery stores thanks to our lax governmental inspection policies; doesn’t it seem even more important to have a better pick for Ag Secretary than the guy who’s in Monsanto’s hip pocket, the champion of big beef cloning companies and pharmaceutical companies?

Someone needs to talk some sense into the President-elect - enough with this reaching across the aisle business. That Vilsack-line is not one we want you to cross. He’s no advocate of the policies your supporters care about.

• The top 10 trends: locally grown produce, bite-size desserts, organics, healthy kids' meals, new/fabricated meat cuts, kids' vegetable/fruit side dishes, superfruits (including acai and mangosteen), small plates/tapas/mezze/dim sum, artisanal liquor, sustainable seafood.

Local, organic, sustainable seafood - with all the food safety issues this year, the poisonings, deaths and recalls of unsafe foods sitting on our grocers’ shelves is it any wonder that people are going to prefer local, organic and sustainably grown food? I always say “if your farmer doesn’t have a face, be afraid.” In other words, know your producers. Build those local relationships. If his kids are drinking the same groundwater he’s going to less likely to poison it, we can assume.

Even though Epicurious bloggers declared sustainable over, pitting it in a false dichotomy against value (!) we know that not only do you get better value (nutrition) from local, organic, sustainably grown food, we reap less public health costs and personal health crises when we are not polluting the land and our bodies with chemicals to make bionic food (bigger, faster, more productive).

Organic wines and micro-distilled liquors, culinary cocktails, organic coffees...I see these as connected to the same issues. Food integrity as well as food safety. Direct or Fair Trade is another issue that comes up, especially with things like coffee which is a huge import for the US.

• The top alcohol trends: micro-distilled liquor, culinary cocktails and organic wine. Top non-alcoholic beverage trends: specialty iced tea, organic coffee and flavored/enhanced water.

So read about the 2008 Best Food Finds here and see what else I predict will be hot for 2009.