Photo by flyheatherfly.
Perhaps you’ve noticed that the beginning of 2015 brought with it a barrage of articles trying to predict up-and-coming food trends for the New Year. We at RENDER began to feel pressure to inform our readers about all the food you should eat (food style) in 2015 to seem really incredibly hip and in-the-know. I was caramelizing Brussels sprouts in 2010 and I ate exclusively at restaurants with ampersands in the name in 2013 level hip. We’ve been busily compiling a list of our predictions for the metaphorically-hottest-but-probably-actually-coolest-served-at-room-temperature foods of 2015.
Eat these foods and be prepared to passive-aggressively assert your social dominance over your friends and all those people you met once who follow you on social media. You will be the alpha male of foodies, but in an Aziz-Ansari-on-Letterman, new masculinity kind of way. A Peter Meehan and David Chang smashing bowls of ramen kind of way.
Also, eating the right foods will let people know you’re rich. Not new-money-gauche-rich, but I-live-in-Brooklyn-with-only-one-roommate rich. Never fear, the RENDER staff can tell you which foods will increase your social capital enough that you can subscribe to Kinfolk all year without your friends questioning if you’re legit enough to read it or display it on your refurbished industrial butcher block coffee table. –LCK
Brett Bankson (The Good Curd): I predict that 2015 will be the year of clean, grain-and-hemp based enemas (Goop got that one right!) and gourmet breakfast cereals finally making their way into tasting menus. Move along ramen and kimchi—small-batch, soy sauce cocktails are the new umami powerhouses!
Corey Fawcett (Deputy Editor): PENIS.
Anne Ferguson (Assistant Designer): "Artisanal" toast paired with bourbon and jam flights.
Renee Gross (The Feminist Fork): Corn silk-wrapped-bacon-wrapped Jerusalem artichokes with fermented goat mustard sauce will be the new hot small plate. The soft boil movement will become the new health trend with soft-boiled owl eggs, soft-boiled ornamental squash, and soft-boiled biscuits. Consensual breast milk will replace other non-dairy alternatives. Robin’s egg ramen and corn silk juice shots will be the new must-haves at your neighborhood's noodle and juice bar. (That's right, noodle and juice bars will popping up everywhere). And s'mores taco trucks will flood the market.
Lisa C. Knisely (Editor-in-Chief): Everyone will be drinking flat whites at small, independent coffee shops across the street from Starbucks while debating what a flat white actually is. North Dakota will ban foie gras to snub California. Catsup is the new sriracha. Pickled, snorted poppy seeds will be the new amuse-bouche. Drinking cups of béchamel will be the rage by fall, because “bone broth” has become too “traditional,” much like cooking food with fire. Some bros will stuff their faces on some T.V. shows on a variety of channels. There will be a token woman on a few of these shows, because breast meat. Placenta & waffles. "Homemade" Taco Bell. Finally, food will be over in 2015. Not in an “end of cuisine” modernist way or a Soylent drink your food way; food has officially jumped the shark. Go home food, you’re drunk.
Gabi de León (Founder and Creative Director): Super basic coffee shops. They won't even have Scandinavian-minimalist-meets-rustic-Pacific-Northwest decor. Hashtags will try to make their way into restaurant names (though mostly unsuccessfully throughout 2015). One-word restaurants will be on trend with names like "Gather,” “Flock,” “Together,” or “#Herd.”
Claire Lower (Savor the Science): I predict that cupcakes will again be popular, but only if eaten with an eyeroll while mumbling something about "what a basic bitch" you're being right now. I also predict a return to tap water. It will be referred to as "tapping out." Instead of eating bacon-wrapped dates, we'll just eat bacon.
Drew McGaw (Assistant Director): EVOO on nitro. The newest New American is Nouveau American, French. The next sriracha is black pepper. Boiling is the new deep frying. The un-sandwich.
Kate Peifer (Online Editorial Assistant): Upscale bars reinventing lowbrow cocktail classics by adding things like anchovies, whole Rosemary twigs, coffee bean floaters, pie crust rims, and Parmesan flakes. Oh, and instead of bacon-wrapped dates, we'll just eat dates.
Miranda Rabuck (Online Editor): With the development of a black genetically modified superfood, health goth juice bars and smoothie shops will spread like wildfire. Coffee shops will continue shrinking their menus until tepid decaf sugar-free vanilla lattes with no foam are the sole offering.
Julia Ricciardi (The Good Curd): I predict chocolate, coffee, and fruit. People are going to eat so many kinds of fruit. Some people may even drink coffee every day.
Phylisa Wisdom (Breaking Bread): More portmanteau food items (e.g., kimchito = a kimchi burrito) that are amalgamations of two other things that are certifiably hip. Shrimp cocktail. Microwave popcorn (#normcore). Strawberries. This will definitely be the year breast milk ice cream becomes a bonafide thing, but only if served with pretzel cones.
