Supermarket Waitrose has released its predictions for food trends in 2017 and some of them sound, well, a bit weird. To be fair though it could not get any weirder than 2016 has been, so let’s see what is in store for the food and drink industry.
Poke bowls
Not to be confused with Pokeballs (come on, aren’t we over Pokemon Go yet?) poke bowls are a Hawaiian traditional seafood preparation, basically a raw fish salad – usually tuna or salmon – marinated with lime juice, soy sauce and sesame seeds. Poke bowls are already appearing around the nation’s capital. Look at Ahi Poke London if you don’t believe me.
All the waters
Cactus water is set to be a trend but more so will be Watermelon water after Beyonce invested big in the company WTRMLN WTR. This has obviously piqued a lot of people’s interest. Watermelon water is essentially just cold-pressed watermelon juice used for “natural rehydration” perhaps the focus will be the taste because really you can get just as easily achieve “natural rehydration” from good old fashioned council pop plus it will save you a load of bucks.
Perfume inspired cocktails
After Café Royal teamed up with Givenchy to create 10 fragrance-led cocktails over the summer, experts now believe this could be a trend that continues on into 2017. The general idea is that you pick your favourite scent from behind the bar and then get to sip the corresponding cocktail. I’ve yet to try this and am not incredibly sure how well perfume translates to something you would drink but you never know it could be delicious. I may invent my own and call it Old Spice and the ingredients would be just Sailor Jerry rum, and maybe a squeeze of lime. Best. Cocktail. Ever.
Aubergine to replace carbs
Apparently people are swapping out normal carbs with aubergine. There’s been an 18% rise in the sales of these purple vegetables and it’s fast replacing typical carbs such as bread and pasta. Call me a stereotypical Glaswegian but I really don’t see me replacing my chip butty with a lump of aubergine anytime soon. They can take our lives, but they’ll never take our tatties.
Vegetable yoghurt
Just no.
Gourmet meal kits
Lazy foodies who still want quality but are too tired or don’t have time to whip up something artisanal will be in luck next year as gourmet meal kits will take away a lot of the time and effort required to produce quality food. Waitrose is itself is currently trialing luxury meal kits at the moment which I am keen to try myself; if I do I’ll update his article with my experience.
Healthy food swaps
A lot of focus next year will be on clean living and finding healthier alternatives when it comes to components of our meals for example replacing heavy creams with vegetable purees though, at the same time other experts are predicting an end to this, dismissing it as a fad. Personally I do believe we will continue to focus on making meals healthier and swapping out items for a healthier alternative. My own prediction for 2017? A spiralizer in every home.
The counterbalance of extreme indulgence
Following on from the freak shake trend it’s predicted that even though we’ll be making all this effort to live cleaner, healthier lives we’ll basically ruin all the hard work we did by finishing off our courgetti bolognaise with some kind of freak of an ice cream/brownie/chocolate mountain of some sort.
You people make no sense.
If you have any predictions of your own let us know in the comments below.
