Nutty professors on to something
It was the breakfast of champions, or at least the breakfast of a champion git. Five years ago, when celebrity chef ‘‘Paleo’’ Pete Evans revealed his daily food diary to an Australian newspaper, he claimed he started each day with ‘‘two glasses of alkalised water with apple cider vinegar, a smoothie of alkalised water, organic spirulina, activated almonds, maca, blueberries, stevia, coconut keffir and two organic, free-range eggs’’.
Nothing, not even the emu meatballs Evans professed to enjoy, triggered as many mocking tweets as those nuts.
T-shirts were printed, memes went viral, and activated almonds became a symbol of clean-living quackery.
Evans was onto something, however, for activated almonds were among the headline acts when I visited the annual Speciality and Fine Food Fair in London this month. The United Kingdom’s leading trade showcase of artisanal foods, it’s like our Food Show, only bigger and posher. Here’s my pick of this year’s top 10 food trends.
You’d be nuts not to marinate your activated almonds in coconut water or a superfood stew. These new Raw Beauty Snacks are coated in lime, spirulina, maca, turmeric and black pepper then ‘‘gently’’ sweetened with coconut sugar. They tasted OK, but I choked at the price: five quid per 60g. (irawuk.com)
Super nuts: Pistachios are the new peanuts:
From pistachio curd to pistachio paste, pistachio and cardamom butter and pistachio popcorn, this little limegreen nut is having its 15 minutes of fame. Personally, I prefer my pistachios finely chopped with goji berries then cut into slabs of organic, dairy-free, sugar-free, gluten-free, cold-pressed chocolate sweetened with yacon. Don’t you? (adamschocolates.com)
Coconut water is out, birch water is in:
The latest hydration craze comes from the birch forests of Belarus, where 55-year-old Betula pendula trees are being tapped for up to 85 litres of cholesterol- and cellulitereducing spring sap. (amazingforest.co.uk)
I’m not suggesting a nip of Janola or a spritzer of Sprayn-Wipe but a mouthful of gutenhancing murky apple cider vinegar, bottled with its cobwebby fermenting sediment or ‘‘mother’’.
Clean drinking: Patience, grasshopper:
Go organic. Eat your garden pests. Jimini’s range of ready-to-eat Insect Snacks includes Sour Cream and Onion flavoured mealworms (they taste like Pringles but look like maggots), Salt and Vinegar Crickets and Paprika Grasshoppers. If eating snacks with their legs still attached appals you as much as me, they also make protein energy bars from cricket flour. (jiminis.co.uk)
Foreign affairs:
Britain’s post-Brexit borders are still welcoming to foreign flavours. From Portuguese acorn jam to Canadian yellow birch syrup, Russian honey souffle (honey whipped with fruit) and Nordic Blomme, aeble og Slaen chutney (that’s plum, apple and sloe), unpronounceable preserves are where it’s at.
Keep calm and eat caramel: Salted caramel is still the best-selling of gourmet popcorn chef Joe & Seph’s 50 flavours, so they’ve invented a dozen new types of caramel sauce too, from Rum and Raisin to Brandy Butter, Gin and Tonic, Strawberry and Champagne, and Prosecco, which has a faint fizz that cuts through the sugar and cream. (joeandsephs.co.uk)
Drink your weeds:
Tea bags are old hat, even in Old Blighty. Now you can brew hand-tied tea ‘‘bulbs’’ that bloom into floral ikebana in your cup, or sip cordials flavoured with dandelion and burdock. Or perhaps you’d prefer a glass of Lurvill’s Delight botanical soda, made to an 1896 Welsh recipe that combines stinging nettles, dock leaves, juniper and black carrot juice sweetened with rhubarb. (floratea.com lurvillsdelight.com)
Gin is in, especially if it’s infused with sloe, damson, elderflower, lemon balm, rhubarb or, ahem, collagen. That’s right: CollaGin, the world’s first gin distilled with collagen, promises a ‘‘flawlessly smooth’’ finish to its flavour and your face. (collagin.co.uk)
Young in spirit: The emperor’s new cocktails:
It had to happen. Once sugar, gluten, meat, dairy and calories had all been ostracised, it was only a matter of time before some bright spark thought to take the alcohol out of alcohol. The hottest drink in London right now is a spirit-less spirit called Seedlip: one batch of 1000 bottles sold out in Selfridges in just 30 minutes.
This cleverly branded distilled water costs as much as conventional booze and has been embraced by the ‘‘mindful drinking’’ movement. Described by The Guardian as ‘‘a curious liquid, a sort of pleasantly pungent savoury-herby-medicinal water’’, to me it tasted woody and aromatic, like chewing on a cinnamon stick then licking cologne off your lover’s neck. Which, I have to say, is either kind of sexy or quite disgusting
You'd be nuts not to marinate your activated almonds in coconut water or a superfood stew.