I’ve had enough: Kunal Vijayakar on food trends to retire in 2020
Kale, avocado, food with activated charcoal — the author lists all the food trends from 2019 that need to go and trends like cross-cultural and hyper-regional cuisine that are emerging
Here we are, once again, at the dawn of a brand new year, in anticipation of what this chapter will bring forth, at the same time looking back at some of the boastful, feckless and indeed odd things we did in the last decade and the last year. Of course I am talking only about food and nothing else.
So let’s start with a few food trends I hope I will never have to see again.
First of all, kale. The most wretched edible leaves ever to gain high-fashion status. Sneakily, about a decade ago, this cabbage, this cruciferous vegetable, took over. It turned up in salads and smoothies, as garnish, as chips, in soups, even as an alternative to chapati. Kale was everywhere; we just stopped short of making shirts out of the damn thing. The good news is that this could be the year we bury the kale craze once and for all, hopefully never to see it surface again.
The other healthy but assuredly humdrum and drab delicacy that ruled the decade was the avocado, especially on toast. Everyone from the stylish Bastian in Bandra to Kitchen Garden by Suzette, Plenty at Fort to everybody in Malad West had Avocado on Toast on their menu. C’mon, who eats fruit with toast!? And that too, a fatty, mushy, green pulp that, without lime, chillies and other racy, zesty ingredients to give it some semblance of flavour, tastes like a whole lot of creamy nothingness. In 2020, I’m hoping avocado on toast will be toast.
I know black is always in fashion, but food made black with activated charcoal? Why oh why do we need a black pizza base, a black burger bun or a scoop of ice-cream that looks like a ball of frozen grease? All through the last decade, cafés turned normal food black. Black cocktails, black milkshakes, black soup, black cakes, black bread. Was there any value, taste or health benefit to this food that looked like soot, other than it being Instagram-worthy? I don’t think so. Let’s hope this trend has been burnt to cinders.
Another fad I hope we’re done with — food that looked like it had been plated by a florist. Edible flowers. This peculiar infatuation was popularised by French Michelin-starred chefs and contestants of the Great British Bake Off, who put edible flowers in salads, cakes and cocktails, and then as garnish on almost anything. Suddenly soups had little begonias floating on top, canapés were finished with pansies, and macho-looking pork chops arrived with delicate lilies and lavenders on the side. It was always a dilemma whether to put the flowers to the side of the plate (exactly the way I do with green vegetables) or crunch and munch them along with the food. All I can say is that in the last two years I have eaten nearly three whole flower shops, and I’ll be damned if I will swallow it anymore.
Ramen. Yes, ramen has been talked about, slurped and devoured for years now. It’s passionately handcrafted, religiously slow-cooked, its meats and bones patiently simmered to serve what to me is a warm, watery waste of time. Don’t get me wrong; I really like soups and broths with things floating inside. Like the bak kut teh (pork ribs tea), a herbal soup with a knuckle of pork and whole garlic bulbs. Or the Vietnamese bun bo hue, a soup of pork and beef bones, slow-simmered and flavoured with spicy chilli paste, lemongrass, shrimp paste, lime and a few delicious add-ons like sliced meats and crab balls. But ramen? Nope. I really tried to like ramen, because everyone told me I was not trendy. I last ordered some at Izumi in Bandra, a restaurant that I really love. But no, I’ll stick to the chicken liver on a stick at Izumi. Ramen is just not for me.
Now imagine that you’ve been invited to a sit-down meal. And as you fiddle with your cutlery, waiting for the centerpiece to arrive, anticipating a whole grilled stuffed chicken, or a leg of ham or mutton, possibly even a casserole of baked mince and potatoes, the host, beaming with pride, brings on a roasted whole head of cauliflower. Cauliflower, for God’s sake! When did this happen? I’d heard of the grotesque use of cauliflower to make the traditional flour crust of a pizza healthier. But when did the roasted head of a cauliflower turn so gourmet that it became a star on the menus of the most influential chefs around the world? Cauliflower is supposed to be a sabzi that I detest, not a culinary chef d’oeuvre. Although a well-roasted cauliflower head looks quite dramatic, and I suppose a cauliflower’s mild, neutral flavour and creaminess make it the perfect beneficiary for robust seasonings, give me a rack of ribs any day.
These are the few fads and trends that I hope will have breathed their last with the year that’s past, but now for some good news to look forward to.
There are two trends, I hear, that will engulf us this year. They’ve already made their presence felt and I hope they will abound and flourish in 2020. One is cross-cultural cuisine and the other, hyper-regional cuisine. We can expect restaurants to experiment more and perfect the hitherto-messed-up art of cross-cultural fusion. Rahul Akerkar at Qualia and Prateek Sadhu at Masque have already made a great beginning, proofing food that has an international heart, but an Indian soul. And when India itself has so much to offer, regional and hyper-regional cuisine is just waiting to be explored. Exactly what Thomas Zacharias of The Bombay Canteen has been doing. Travelling around the country absorbing, imbibing and then presenting foods with roots that are steeped in regional traditions, and what a large source there is out there.
As far as my personal pursuit goes, I am looking for a trend that will allow me to eat all the food I love and not put on weight. Unfortunately, I don’t think that will happen this year, or this decade, or this century.