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LET'S EAT!: NEW FOOD TRENDS
Unique taste experiences for the foodie in you Plus: Wii loves Iron Chef America
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Salt Tasting: While your average table salt might be fine for a plate of hot French fries, there is a whole other world of salty colors, textures, and tastes available to experience. Portland's vegan Nutshell does serious justice to the mineral by providing a tasting menu of the stuff. The Olive Oil and Salt Bar menu lists a variety of oils and salts that complement each other, and a friendly and knowledgeable staff helps to explain the tastes and suggest the best pairings. From pink, black, gray, brown and pure white, to smoky, mineraly, briney and mellow, to flaked, rocky, gem-like and super fine, the tasting menu is both an educational and sensory experience. Move over wine, salt might just be creating a new breed of food snobs.
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Bizarre Foods: Our trend reporters continue to rave about television shows such as Bizarre Foods With Andrew Zimmern and Anthony Bourdain: No Reservations, programming through which they get to vicariously experience unknown and sometimes shocking food cultures, traditions, and dishes from around the world. In line with this type of edutainment, we're seeing the emergence of an "adventurous" food trend. Online shop Edible offers curious eaters "delicacies" such as curried crocodile, reindeer pate, toasted Mopani worms and Leafcutter ants, while Rhode Island's Sunrise Land Shrimp touts "gourmet insects" as a tasty, healthy and sustainable alternative to other land roving protein sources. We expect curious diners to continue to seek out the strange, exotic, and rare for new, unique eating experiences—if not for the taste, for the stories they'll have to tell afterward.
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Agave Nectar: In an effort to create a healthier diet, a growing number of consumers are looking to cut out highly processed and/or chemical-based sweeteners such as HFCS (High Fructose Corn Syrup) and Sweet 'N Low. While honey is a popular natural alternative, we've also recently been hearing a lot about agave nectar. Harvested from the agave plant, the nectar (also sometimes called agave syrup) is slightly thinner than honey, about 1.5 times sweeter than sugar (meaning you don't have to use as much), and has a low glycemic index, making it a good alternative for diabetics as well. Available in both light and dark varieties, the nectar's color corresponds to its flavor intensity.
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Have you spotted any new food trends lately? If so, share them with us and we'll post the best of what we receive on
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Just email us at
info@trendcentral.com
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And by the way: The question of whose cuisine reigns supreme is no longer based on actual cooking skills. Iron Chef America fans will soon be able to compete with each other without having to enter the kitchen. Promising similar "fast paced and intense culinary challenges", Iron Chef America: Supreme Cuisine for the Wii and Nintendo DS will be launched this summer.
* trendcentral articles are designed to be trend reports, not endorsements * The Intelligence Group is a trend-forecasting and marketing Consultancy focused on Gen X, Gen Y and Tweens. For more information on our services, or to subscribe to our syndicated studies, The Cassandra Report, Tween Intelligence, Latino Intelligence, and Mom Intelligence, contact Alina Goncalves at 212-277-5299 or via email at agoncalves@intelg.com.
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