Christmas, for those of us who celebrate it, tends to function as a full stop in every respect, and that includes menu planning. Who has the mental capacity in the days leading up to Christmas to plan a post-Dec. 25 meal, and who wants to prematurely contemplate the coming months of austerity required to offset our holiday indulgences?
But at some point in the next day or so, we’ll all wake up to the reality that we probably can’t live on leftover pie and cookies forever and that — oh bleep — we have to come up with a dish to bring to the annual New Year’s party.
Never fear. We’ve consulted some Upper Valley experts to save you from being that person who shows up at the festivities with a six pack and a bag of chips and to give you a peek at food trends on the horizon for the coming year.
Kitchen Confidence
Whatever you plan to drag to the curb this week, make sure your kitchen inhibitions are among them. When it comes to cooking and entertaining, 2019 is the year to loosen up — aided not by apathy but by know-how.
The hot cookbooks for the coming year are those that teach the science behind cooking, equipping home chefs with a sense of independence, said Liza Bernard, co-owner of the Norwich Bookstore. “The idea is to have the basic information and the knowledge and confidence … to make the recipes your own,” she said.
One book Bernard expects to remain popular is New York Times bestseller Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat by Samin Nosrat, which, as the name implies, distills cooking to its fundamentals, at the same time elevating it to a place of honor in global culture. Another she has her eye on is Ottolenghi Simple, a collection of streamlined recipes by famed chef Yotam Ottolenghi. “His past cookbooks have been incredibly popular, but they can be kind of intimidating,” she said.
No less intimidating than whipping up a worthy dish is selecting a wine to serve with it. But here, too, the trend is toward ditching fusty conventions, said Rice Yordy, owner of Windsor Wine and Spirits. Customers are increasingly gravitating toward wines that will pair with a variety of dishes, while learning to let go of strict rules about pairings, he said.
“The most popular wine in my store is a Pinot Noir,” Yordy said. “It’s a universal red wine that goes with anything.”
If you’re looking for a versatile sparkling wine for your New Year’s celebration, Yordy recommends a Spanish Cava.
Classic, With a Twist
Put down that macaron. Fearless cooking may be in fashion, but even as they throw off old constraints, cooks are gravitating toward old-fashioned fare.
“People are really interested in classic recipes,” said Charlotte Rutledge, recipe testing and development manager at King Arthur Flour in Norwich. Old standards such as shortbreads are dominating Instagram feeds these days, Rutledge said, and home-baked bread is the new knitting.
Basic doesn’t mean boring, though. Unexpected ingredients are showing up in familiar dishes these days. Another cookbook Bernard expects to be popular in 2019 is Season: Big Flavors, Beautiful Food by Nik Sharma. “The author talks about taking your basic foods and then seasoning them with different flavors from different cultures,” she said.
And if you think multicultural accents end with the main course, think again. One ingredient that’s become big in the baking world is turmeric, a spice often associated with Indian cooking and known for its health benefits. “People are using it both as a flavor profile and for color,” said Rutledge, who recently saw a recipe for a classic vanilla cake that uses the rich yellow spice.
Another popular ingredient is matcha green tea. “That bright green powder can make something like a glaze really pop,” said Rutledge, who added that it’s best as a finishing touch because it changes color when heated.
One of the trendiest new products at the Hanover Co-op stores is a line of honeys and syrups infused with herbs like elderberry, lavender and rose, said member education manager Emily Rose.
And while we’re talking infusions, there’s no avoiding CBD as a trendy new ingredient in everything from tea to candy.
“There’s all kinds of different ways to use it,” said Scott Aranson, who owns Chef’s Market in Randolph with his wife, Tammy, and tries to stock his shelves with the hippest foods he can find. Aranson carries CBD-infused honey as well as a line of beverages infused with the hemp compound and said his customers are clamoring for it. “We have been getting so many testimonials from our customers,” he said.
Eating (and Drinking) Clean
Not surprisingly, the gospel of conscientious consumption remains a driving force in food trends.
The demand for locally sourced meats is up, said Aranson, who carries a variety of meats from local farms. And that’s not all. With fears about global warming reaching a fever pitch, meat substitutes and meatless meals are heating up.
“People are always asking for meat alternatives,” said Rogers, echoing predictions revealed by Whole Foods last month in its annual list of food trends. “There’s a shift towards a meatless meal once a week.”
Popular meat alternatives include meat-like products such as veggie burgers and veggie jerky as well as grains that can satisfy in a main dish, Rogers said. And organic, non-GMO products remain popular as well.
Yordy said people are increasingly asking for not just organic but biodynamic wines — wines produced at wineries that respect the interdependence of organisms. “They’re not in here looking for red or white. They want to know if it’s organic and biodynamic,” he said.
The quest for pure eating dovetails well with other food movements. In the new cookbook, Cooking from Scratch, customers of Seattle’s PCC Community Market share ideas for making simple, inspired meals using fresh, local ingredients. Bernard heard about it through a customer and thinks it will be a hit with Vermont home chefs.
Clean eating also marries well with those perennial weight loss resolutions. The hot diet for 2019 combines elements of the popular paleo diet with vegan sensibilities that acknowledge the effects of factory farming, Rutledge said. If paleo-vegan sounds like a contradiction, the word vegan in this case is apparently shorthand for choosing sustainably produced animal products and minimizing the amount of them that you eat.
Easy Come, Easy …. Stay?
In the age of Instagram, food trends can explode overnight, and some disappear almost as quickly. Others appear to be sticking around. Coconut products, which burst on the food scene several years ago and have been heralded for their health benefits, remain extremely popular as 2018 closes out, Aranson said. Coconut figures into some of the Whole Foods predictions for 2019, ensuring its dominance on store shelves in the months to come.
The gluten-free lifestyle also remains in vogue, perhaps because the products available keep getting better, said Aranson, who sells a lot of Bob’s Red Mill gluten-free flours. “A lot of the items are getting to be superior now,” he said.
And if you haven’t jumped on the probiotics bandwagon, Whole Foods predicts that the gut-pampering craze will expand into new product lines in the coming year.
Probiotic doughnuts? We can only hope.