Celeriac, oysters and spreadable pork to trend in 2015: report

Celeriac or celery root.

What food will be hot next year?

Ugly root vegetables will steal some of the vegetable spotlight away from kale while oysters will grow in popularity as a happy hour snack.

These are among some of the food trends predicted to pervade the restaurant world in 2015 by New York restaurant consultancy group Baum + Whiteman, who every year delivers a set of dining prophecies.

Here’s a selection of some of the foods and flavours they predict will become popular in restaurants in 2015:

Oysters may replace chips and pretzels during happy hour.

Oysters

The numbers speak for themselves: Chesapeake Bay’s harvest grew eightfold between 2006 and 2012, while the harvest in Connecticut doubled between 2007 and 2010. Look out for oysters to replace chips and pretzels during happy hour and keep an ear out for the term “merroir”, a play on the word terroir in which aficionados try to guess the provenance of their oysters by brine, acidity and shape. Chefs are also playing with different sauces, topping oysters with everything from kimchi, lemongrass, to chorizo butter.

Kohlrabi is knobbly and spotted – this one, with the smooth skin, has been cleaned up for sale. 

Ugly root vegetables

You could call them the “grunge” of the vegetable world. The latest “it” veggies to rock the culinary world aren’t particularly pretty or shiny. In fact, Baum + Whiteman call celery root, parsnips and kohlrabi “ugly root vegetables”. And it’s precisely because they escape the typical consumer shopping cart that they’ve become “cheffy ingredients” for restaurants, which are using the humble ingredients are starch alternatives to potatoes.

Vegetable yoghurt

After Dan Barber – chef of farm-to-table restaurant Blue Hill at Stone Barns – and his brother David launched vegetable-flavored yoghurts like butternut squash, beet and carrot, big yogurt manufacturers are watching how the innovation plays out. Vegetable yogurt could be pitched as an alternative to fruit-flavoured yoghurts that are more sugar bomb desserts than light dairy snack.

'Nduja with bread, piece of sausage in background. – © Alice Wiegand / CC-BY-SA 4.0 (via Wikimedia Commons)

Spreadable pork

Chefs and restaurants are challenging bacon fans to expand beyond their porcine repertoire and try other pig parts like fried ears and cheeks. Also look out for ‘ndjua, a spicy, spreadable pork sausage, to make more menu appearances, be it on pasta, pork chops, mushrooms or focaccia.

Insects

After pop-up “Pestaurant” events happening all over the world in 2014, top chefs putting edible insects on their fine dining menus, and a grocery store chain in the Netherlands putting insect-based burgers and chips on their store shelves, look out for the trend to gain even more momentum in 2015. – AFP Relaxnews