2011 – Food Trends I can Agree With

The HuffingtonPost has posted their yearly look-back at the most recent food trends. Though some of them don’t seem to have come to Portland yet, it’s fun to look at the list.

1. Insects – this one hasn’t made it to Portland, and though I’ve eaten ants, crickets and grubs, it wouldn’t break my heart if I never had any of them again.
2. Fancy Donuts – A few new places have opened lately, but we’ve had good donuts here for a couple of years now.
3. Cocktail Bitters – yup, especially small batch companies such as Bittermans and Berg & Hoch. However, it seems to me that Portland was on the forefront of this wave. Bartenders Kevin Ludwig, Daniel Shoemaker of Teardrop Lounge and Jeffrey Morganthaler of Clyde Common were experimenting with these a few years back.
4. “Unfamiliar Chinese Food Flavors” – We don’t have much good Chinese food at all, let alone more rustic dishes. It seems to me that we are way behind the curve on this one.
5. Pimento Cheese – huh? I’m so not hip. I don’t even know what to say. Do we have pimento cheese carts yet?
6. Foraging – another trend that got a good push from the Northwest, foraging for mushrooms, herbs, nettles etc., is bigger than ever and has been a local passion for years. Of course, some people would say that buying at the farmers market is foraging, and the Portland Fruit Tree Project gathers fruit that is going to waste in peoples yards. There is at least one foraging school in Oregon, Wild Food Adventures, and several local chefs are known for hunting down ingredients.
7. Upmarket Fried Chicken – I’d say Adam Sappington at The Country Cat was at the forefront of this in, what, 2008? It does seem to have picked up steam over the past year, which I would attribute to a need for comfort food in a down economy.
8. Macarons – Phttp! They’ve been all over town for years, Nuvrei’s new café is the newest place to get them. Note: I first wrote “Macaroons”. Simple mistake. Changed them to “Macarons”, as they should be. Now stop writing!
9. Negroni Cocktail – It seems like most of my friends starting drinking Negronis in 2008. Maybe I just run with a cool group. It is an easy drink to make – 1 part gin, 1 part sweet red vermouth, 1 part Campari, stirred into an old-fashioned glass over ice. A few of these and you’ll be on your ass. If it is before 9 am, I like the ‘Negroni sbagliato’, where prosecco is used instead of gin.
10. Butchery – Just one of the places where you can learn the art, the Portland Meat Collective has been all over this! You can give a gift certificate for a butchering class for god’s sake. So 2009.
11. Meatballs – I haven’t seen them appearing on local menus yet, but I’m glad they are coming. Nothing like good meatballs on a cold winter’s day.

What do you think? Did they get the list right?