4

Seaweed

Silentpilot/Pixabay

Seaweed was invented approximately forever ago when Odin and Quetzalcoatl agreed the world needed oceans in which we could all pee. Since then it has grown on the ocean floor and given every swimmer who accidentally brushed against it a serious case of the heebie-jeebies. And then one day some dude was all, "Lemme taste this shit," and he did, and it caught on with about 400 other people. On average.

Fast-forward to today and those 400 people still enjoy dry, salty sheets of micro-thin seaweed wrapped around their sushi such that they can't even taste it and one guy likes it as a salad with sesame seeds on it, but only when you ask him. In private, he hates it as much as you assume he would.

moleshko/Pixabay
"I love seaweed (when it's with fish, rice, vegetables, soy sauce, wasabi, and ginger)!"

3

Pickling

szjeno09190

I feel like this is a bit of smoke-and-mirrors here, some kind of bullshittery meant to obfuscate the fact that pickles are delicious and have been so for the 4,000 years pickles have existed. Pickles are older than Jesus, and someone has the balls to call pickling a food trend to watch in 2016. That's dumb. Like a new kind of ultra-dumb just discovered in the remote reaches of a South American forest where previously indigenous peoples had told stories of mythical dumb that science just assumed was allegorical or something, because obviously nothing that dumb could ever exist in real life, only now we know it does, and we have no idea how to handle it, because fuck.

VincenzoRaucci/Pixabay
The foodie version of Columbus "discovering" a continent filled with millions of people.

2

Artisanal Sausage

Dreblow/Pixabay

I'm not sure what makes one an artisan of sausage. I tend to equate the word with some kind of professional like Da Vinci or Michelangelo, but I can't imagine either of them hard at work on a chubby link of ground pork in an intestinal casing.

Despite the questionable qualifications of these pork slingers calling themselves artisans, as near as I can figure, an artisanal sausage is literally just a sausage you made yourself or is like 6 degrees of Kevin Bacon from a guy who made it in his own kitchen. An easier way to say that would be "not factory-made." Generally speaking, they're also chock a block with bullshit. Like a regular sausage might be "honey garlic," but an artisanal sausage might be feta cheese, sun-dried tomatoes, and Ryan Seacrest's shin shavings.

KRiemer/Pixabay
"His tanning bronzer gives off a fantastic smokiness when grilled."

1

Bugs

dkdesign033/Pixabay

Some wahoo in a tweed jacket with an untamed beard has been claiming for years that bugs are the next big trend in food. Crickets have been touted as the greatest source of protein in the world. Of course, it's also been said that the study on crickets as a protein source is flawed and that the quality of the protein is vastly dependent upon the quality of the feed the crickets are given and, in fact, chickens can be a better source. A lot of it depends on circumstances. And your willingness to eat bugs.

And thus we break down the essential problem with bugs as a food source for the world -- most people don't want them. And why bother even trying to introduce them in North America in the first place? It's no small task to enact a cultural shift from "eew, gross" to "better than Olive Garden, I guess." We live in a country where cows flow like water and chickens hang from treetops. We don't need cricket burgers. We don't need Padma Lakshmi delicately chewing a deep-fried cricket and unconvincingly telling us it tastes vaguely nutty. No shit it tastes vaguely like nuts; you may as well be eating balls.

Takeaway/Wiki Commons
I'll have a porterhouse, if you please.

Now, this isn't to say cricket protein couldn't be a big deal on a global scale, but I feel like there's a notable difference between "food trend" and "method of staving off death by malnutrition." Food trends are new ways to stuff dumplings or fantastic new berries we can juice to make exotic, hipster sodas. So a cricket food trend would be something like cricket burritos or cricket and chervil ice cream, both of which can suck my mud flaps.

You can make all the artisanal sausage out of crickets that you want, or protein bars, energy drinks, Krusty burgers, and whatever else -- it doesn't matter when I can just as easily go buy a ham. Good, sweet, nourishing ham, just waiting for me around any corner. Fuck you, bugs; I have a date with a salty angel.

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