FOOD TRENDS: Colorado, kombucha and pupusas

This column originally appeared in the February issue of Yellow Scene magazine in Colorado

By JOHN LEHNDORFF

As a lifelong food geek, I jumped at the opportunity in 2009 to work on Eat In Eat Out, a new report focused on U.S. food and beverage trends. Here are some predictions and how they are manifesting in the Colorado market:

- Affordable remains the mantra. Discounts abound at supermarkets as well as better private label brands. Health food prices will get chopped with newcomer Sprouts joining the crowded fray. Expect continued deals (and smaller portions) from independent eateries fighting to outlive the recession as well as a bevy of Colorado-born fast casuals (think Quizno’s, Chipotle, Noodles & Company).

- Local rules for green, food safety and financial reasons. This should be a good year for artisanal cheese makers (Windsor Dairy), pork producers (Long Farms), bread bakers (Breadworks), chocolatiers (Robin Chocolates), and distillers (Leopold Bros.). Bistro menus will prominently detail ingredients’ points of origin.

- Gardening at home continues to boom using local seed (and home canning), chefs tilling their own gardens and farms (Black Cat, Colterra), and more farmers’ markets and stands. Cooking classes will fill as kitchen neophytes realize they don’t know how to cook.   

Other hot trends include:
Street food: Look for more mobile fare from the traditional taco and pupusa wagons to the chef-driven, Twitter-linked Green Gringo truck.

Kombucha: The Denver metro area is the rising epicenter for this tart fermented tea beverage. Kombucha fills store shelves locally, is on tap at Whole Foods and will be bottled soon by Boulder’s Celestial Seasonings.

Plus: anything gluten-free; upscale burger joints; lardo and salumi; and Sechuan buttons.

- Eat In Eat Out: Food trend forecast 2010: http://americanforecaster.com/

The Award-winning Jet-Puffed Hotluck Surprise

We wanted to come up with something truly different to bring to the annual Hotluck, a wonderful Boulder gathering of adventurous foodies. Everbody brings a dish that has tons of flavor and can be spicy hot.  My son Hans and I batted around ideas for awhile involving peppers in various form. We ended up creating Jet-Puffed Surprises. We chopped fresh habanero and serrano peppers and put a little bit of it in the middle of each marshmallow. We topped each marshmallow with a Ghiradelli chocolate chip and a sprinkle of fleur de sel before toasting each  perfectly with a propane torch. They were the hit of the Hotluck and took home the Most Creative prize in the voting that followed the meal. It was a mouth bemuser because it starts out in your mouth s’more-like until you crunch into the peppers, seeds and all, and get that little blast of heat. I could easily see doing these for another party as a straight dessert with maple-candied roasted hazelnuts in the middle. Yum.