The Latest Food Trends
presented by Dana McCauley & Associates Ltd.

Summer 2007 Contents

Summer '07 Top Food Trends Fun Fads Trending Up Emerging Flavors ConsumeUK Report Worth Mentioning Dana McCauley & Associates Ltd. in the News

Summer '07 Top Food Trends:

Indian-Chinese Food: Emerging as popular eatery concepts in New York, Sydney, San Francisco, London and even Texas, Indian-Chinese fusion restaurants are proving successful. Texas chain Masala Wok (which describes itself as a casual Indian Diner with a Chinese twist) epitomizes the trend here in North America while in Singapore, Indian Wok and Fifth Season are the venues to beat.

Everyday Ole! Hispanic flavors and food words are losing their ethnic mystique as mainstream food companies such as Sargento, Kraft and Wrigley’s turn to this cuisine as inspiration for mass market launches. Check out Sargento’s chipotle seasoned Cheddar, Kraft’s dulce de leche and fresa (strawberry) filled Oreos as well as Orbit mint mojito chewing gum.

Gourmet Gluten Free: Foodies no longer content with a diet of potato pancakes and boiled rice are inspiring food companies to take the gluten free category to new culinary heights. Leading the charge is Susan Bowland, organizer of the Gluten Free Culinary Summit that will take place August 17 to 19 in Denver. This weekend long summit will feature cooking demonstrations and workshops led by noted cookbook authors and top-notch chefs. Check out www.thegultenfreelifestyle.com for more info about the art and science of gluten free gastronomy.

Beyond Butter: Remember the 80’s when gourmets tossed the butter dish away in favor of dipping bread in extra virgin olive oil and premium balsamic vinegar? Well, butter is looking nervous once again as home cooks and chefs alike find alternative ways to garnish their daily bread. At swish New York restaurants, salty, churned cow’s milk is being replace by lardo, a cured pig’s fat spread flavored with garlic, salt and pepper while in many grocery stores sophisticated bread dipper concoctions such as Asiago, Artichoke and Chardonnay or Asian Soy Wasabi Balsamic (both by Wildly Delicious) and Compliments Sensations Greek Style Oregano & Lemon bread dipper (Sobeys) are enticing home cooks to take the plunge.

Up in Smoke: No, it isn’t a Cheech and Chong revival; it’s the return of charcoal grilling! Beyond the Southern style BBQ joints opening all over North America, the wood and charcoal grill trend is also heating up backyards! This summer trend is hard to avoid with products such as wood chips, slow grilling technique books, rubs and smokers available in abundance at specialty as well as grocery and hardware stores. One of our favorite products in the category: Woodbridge Grill’s Toasted Oak Kit that includes seasoned hardwood chips and a magnetic smoker box. www.woodbridgegrill.com

Pie Eyed: Embraced by empty nesters who grew up on mom’s apple pie, mini pies are pleasing to palates and kind to waistlines. From thaw and serve small pies by Sara Lee to Front Street Bakery’s bake-and-serve deep-dish fruit pies (try the peach, blueberry and raspberry version!), there is a pie in store for all tastes. Also appealing to the boomer sweet tooth, Schwan, who identify their primary buyers as women aged 45 and older, has a line of single serve pie slices so that even the lonely can enjoy a piece of pie for dessert.

Meanwhile, high-end Parisian bakeries (Rose Bakery, La Maison Kayser, etc) report long line-ups for the simple, elegant pies they are baking in square pans.

Pucker Up: The launch of PepsiCo’s Aquafina Advanced Hydration RX, a 10-SKU skincare line of bottled waters, marks the mass-market debut of food and drink products formulated as beauty aids. This trend has its roots in products such as Dr. Brandt antioxidant drops and Borba water (which we discussed on these pages as long ago as 2005). Launching soon is Lumaé, a skincare drink being developed by L’Oréal and Coca-Cola.

Soju: Expected on shelf in U.S. stores and bars soon, Soju is a rice-based liquor popular in South and North Korea. It’s generally distilled from rice combined with other ingredients such as sweet potatoes, wheat or barley. Usually clear in color, soju tastes similar to vodka and ranges in alcohol content from about 20 percent to as much as 45 percent.

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Fun Fads

Goodbye Grammar : A handful of restaurants with ill-conceived, weirdly punctuated names such as Öko, Fr.Og and P*ong recently opened in New York – have fun finding these eateries in the phone book!

Rotten: Watching food rot is attracting a remarkable number of internet users. Join in the fun at http://cheddarvision.tv to see cheddar age or watch a tomato rot in time lapse at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F_8VDUheI2o&mode=related&search

Pizza flavored beer: Mamma Mia Pizza Beer just might be a couch potato’s dream come true since it combines the flavor of a popular snack with an equally popular alcoholic drink. Regrettably, you’ll have to get up off the couch to try one since this beer is only to be sold in restaurants.

Kool–Aid Dills: What happens when you marinate a classic dill pickle in strawberry kool-aid? You get a sticky, candy colored pickle that Mississippi kids (who comprise the fan base of this confection) call a Koolickle.

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Trending Up

Verrines: Our moms called sweet or savory layered salads served in clear glasses parfaits but chefs have renamed these single serve foods, verrines. Today’s verrines are more likely served in a solid, flat bottomed old fashioned glass than in cone-shaped stemware; however, they are as delicious and fun to eat as they were back in the day.

Aperitifs: Move over Campari, Cynar and Aperol are herbal, slightly bitter aperitifs that have recently been exported in larger quantities to North America. Liquor agents are bargaining that the popularity of aperitif-enhanced cocktails such as the Negroni have whet North American whistles for more of these bitter edged drinks.

Kaiseki: It only took 500 years for this Japanese cuisine that creates an elevated sensory experience to become a trend setting movement. Recently Chef Yoshirhiro Murata of Kikunoi restaurant in Kyoto was publicly acknowledged by James Beard house when they nominated his book Kaiseki (Ingram Books, hardcover) for one of their annual awards.

Sweet Sips: As more restaurants add dessert cocktails and a selection of ports and dessert wines to their after dinner offering, new sweet drinks are emerging. Striving to find places on dessert menu drink lists are quaffs such as dessert vinegar, honey wine and iced apple wine.

Sous vide: As chefs and foodies accept that ‘boil in the bag’ can return to its gentle, haute cuisine roots, food safety agencies struggle to decide how low temperature cooking fits into their rulebooks.

Crunch: After the word fresh, crunch was the number two menu-marketing claim for 2006. Crisp and crunchy made significant showings in the retail sector, too.

Yakitori: Hamburgers, sushi, pizza…it’s hard to recall but all of these items were once new to the fast food world. Will yakitori be the next break out fast food success story? If so, it’s likely that KushiQ, a new Manhattan outlet, will be the first name we think of when we crave yakitori.

Frozen Yogurt: Visit a Pinkberry or one of its knock off competitors (such as Snowberry, Kiwiberri, BerriGood, Grom and Yolato) and you’re likely to experience déjà vu circa 1990. The epicenter of this second wave of the frozen yogurt invasion reverberates from L.A. and is gaining momentum in other urban centers including New York. Where early frozen yogurt chains mimicked the ice cream experience, the frozen yogurt of this moment is Korean in style. That means it has a silky smooth texture and a flavor that is at once tangy and sweet. New in New York, Öko is edging into the expanding the international scope of this expanding market with Greek style frozen yogurt.

Food Miles : Consumers in Britain, Canada and the USA are consciously buying locally produced foods in an effort to reduce the environmental impact caused by shipping foods long distances. Read “The Hundred Mile Diet: A Year of Local Eating” (Random House, 2007) by Alisa Smith and J.B. MacKinnon for additional insight into this growing trend.

Emerging Flavors & Foods: pink peppercorns, roasted cumin, stout beer, acai, chevre butter, Alphonso mango, coconut, halloumi, wagyu beef, cucumber

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Worth Mentioning

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Read | Learn

Love Bangalore , (Love Travel Guides, 2007) [www.lovetravelguides.com] This first installment in what is promised to be a series, delivers the information you need to see, experience and taste the best of Bangalore in a few days. Like the city itself, this handmade book offers an experience for the senses. Wrapped in a sumptuous silk satchel and printed on handmade paper, Love Bangalore embodies the luxury travel experiences it describes on each page.

Cooking with Booze by Ryan Jennings and David Steele (Whitecap 2006, softcover), Worldwide sales of spirits are soaring due in part to the growing acceptance by home cooks of cooking with alcohol. As the title suggests, Cooking with Booze is a bit of a romp so you’ll enjoy the book whether you cook from it or simply pour a drink to enjoy while you read.

Rosa’s New Mexican Table by Roberto Santibanez (Artisan 2007, hardcover). Brimming with technique and ingredient tips, this book takes much of the mystery out of authentic Mexican cooking.

A Twist of the Wrist by Nancy Silverton (Knopf 2007, hardcover). We love the name of this cookbook since it so aptly reminds all of us that cooking dinner isn’t a Herculean feat! It also evidences the maturation of the pantry cooking trend which was anticipated by a number of precocious writers including Andrew Schloss, Donna Hay and our own Dana McCauley, author of 2002’s Pantry Raid: Out of the Cupboard Cooking.

Savor | Sip

Montreal:
Olive & Gourmando: A homey, eclectic bakery and coffee shop offers excellent breads, creative sandwiches and tummy warming soups. 351 Saint-Paul West, Old Montreal QU, 514 350-1083 Tuesday to Saturday, 8 am to 6 pm.

Soup Man Soups : Worth all the Hype?

• Chicken Vegetable: Very good, hearty, lots of chicken and vegetables; well seasoned and well balanced.
• Seafood Bisque: The worst of the bunch but still not bad. Lots of seafood with okay texture, too salty and a bit starchy. Good initial seafood flavor, but not much depth.
• Turkey Chili – also very hearty, but a bit too much cumin (too strong for turkey) nice corn and beans, thick, satisfying sauce.

The Fine Cheese Co. Charcoal Crackers: These stylish black crackers are suitable for all types of cheese and use charcoal powder as an ingredient. They are crisp and short and have an elegant appearance.

Food Should Taste Good Tortilla Chips:

• Chocolate (Dutch Chocolate, cane sugar, sea salt) –mild and salty, with an intense chocolate finish. Great texture!
• Jalapeño– perfectly salted and the spice takes a second or two to hit you.

Premiere Moisson – Honey, Raisin and Hazelnut Loaf A great buy at $3.99 per loaf, this bread is available only at A&P, Dominion stores.

La Sauvagine Camembert : Winner of the 2006 Grand Champion of the Canadian Cheese Grand Prix this cheese is wonderfully smooth, buttery and enticingly fragrant.

Summer Fresh Hummus Snack n’ Go:

Roasted Garlic Hummus, Original Hummus, Roasted Red Pepper Hummus – These healthful, portable snacks make a wonderful alternative to chips and other traditional snack fare.

We also liked Summer Fresh’s

• Asiago and Artichoke Dip – creamy and cheesy with true artichoke flavor
• Picnic Coleslaw: good texture and balance, with a very fresh crunch that few other prepared coleslaws offer.
• Samosas: light, airy and despite being fried

Wildly DeliciousFruit Salad Dressings:
Is this the beginning of a new grocery category? Wildly delicious sent us two fruit salad dressings to try: Raspberry & Lemongrass and Mandarin & Ginger.

Russo’s Sauces These pestos from Northern California are made with organic basil and all fresh ingredients. Super yummy is their pesto torta, which features a layer each of cream cheese, basil pesto and sun dried tomato pesto.

Dancing Deer Baking Co- Maple Pecan Shortbread Nuggets Packaged two per individual sleeve, these bite sized short bread cookies taste divine, have no trans fat and update a traditional so that it can compete with portion control snacks.

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Dana McCauley & Associates in the News

Television

• May 11: Daytime Richmond Hill
• May 29: CKCO News at Noon
• June 26: Canada AM

Media Mentions:

• June 9: The Toronto Star Food Magazine

Sign up for Dana’s Cookery Column Top Ten Table: http://www.recipeprose.com/top-ten-table.html

Sign up for Dana’s easy cooking newsletter: http://www.dinewise.com/chef_dana_mccauley

Amy Snider, VP Sensory Excellence

We are proud to report that one of our own has been recognized by her peers. Amy received the Ontario Home Economics Association President’s Award for Distinguished Service.

Television:

• CTV Noon News, Kitchener (May 22)
• Breakfast Television, Toronto (May 23)
• Roger’s Daytime York Region (June 11)

Articles:

Sign up for Amy’s nutritious eating column at http://www.dinewise.com/amy_snider

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