New Food Trends #10: What About Me?

You're gonna love this new trend. After all, what's not to love about YOU. It's all about the individual rising to the top, like the cream in the milk of life. Sure, there's a trend towards sharing too (witness more communal tables showing up in restaurants), but the other side of the coin is the trend toward you, the individual. You're smoking your own meats, handcrafting homemade cheeses and concocting your own fancy-shmancy desserts

What does this mean in terms of restaurants? Simply, look for restaurants that cater more directly to each customer. You'll decide on your own menu, pick your own ingredients, and specify how things are prepared like never before. It's the concept of choosing your own pizza toppings taken to a whole new level. Go ahead, tell them to make you a salmon omelet if that's what you want, after all, their concept is catering to you specifically. The more you determine what you'll be eating - exactly - whether at home or when dining out, the more you'll feel in control of things; the more organized your entire life seems. This is the key to the new individuality.

Restaurants are struggling in the current economy the same as people, and they are beginning to recognize that you want to be heard, that you have a voice and it's loud. We're in a constant struggle to keep our individual identity, and we're capturing our food creations with our cameras and cell phones – whether it's food prepared in our own homes or made to order for us in a restaurant – and posting them on the Internet to share our creativity with the world. It's “look at me, I created this. Try it, you'll like it.”  It's all part of us asserting our individuality; of announcing our existence to the world.

The truth is that casual dining restaurants have all run together in our minds. The food from one to the other all seems the same. This is because recipes and methods of preparation have to be easy for the untrained cooks behind the scenes in the kitchens. The new trend – and it's being welcomed – is to give establishments individual personalities, both in their décor, the food they serve, and the experience one has dining in them. Interesting menus are popping up everywhere, prepared by celebrity chefs, and new flavors will rise to your new expectations. That's right. You are the new trend, as you ask, “What about me?”

(In research conducted by The Food Network, International Food Futurists, and Culture Waves, a list of the top 10 food trends was developed. It is from this project that this top trend comes .)