The Fork: Trend Watch ‘22 (Or What’s Left of It, Anyway)

We just so happen to think this is one of the more interesting times for the business of foodservice in human history. Oh, we’ve always been restaurant fans—partly because we’re lazy sometimes, but also because we believe there’s no better meal than the one made by someone who loves making food. But we also think it’s interesting how humankind dictates trends within the biz like some sort of bird flock; which is to say that trends pop up in the food, restaurant and eating world(s) in strangely cohesive ways despite how we aren’t usually on the phone with people we know like, “Yeah, this is kind of how we’re going to do it food-wise in 2022.”

But that’s kind of what we’re here to do with all y’all this week, which is to say we’ve been scouring the world looking to identify trends in food and foodservice, and we’ve compiled a list of things we think you’re probably going to like, endure, begrudgingly accept or just plain enjoy over the rest of the year. We’re not saying any of this is a lock, but we do notice things when we’re out there eating and drinking and laughing and LIVING AND LOVING AND HUGGING AND WAVING AND STUFF.

Anyway, here’s what 2022′s gonna look like in the world of food in our opinion:

Pared-Down Menus That’ll Still Impress

We’ve already seen it in Santa Fe over the last two years, but our editor recently dining at the Plaza Café really drove the point home: Supply chain issues are going to force restaurants to get smart and creative, but it seems chefs and cooks and the like are using this as a chance to get clever. Take, for example, the Plaza Café, which we’ve just read has made its menu more concise while phasing over items from its decidedly different Southside location to the flagship Plaza zone. Avocado tacos made crispy with quinoa and sesame seeds? Uh, yeah. Yes. We’re down.

Ghost Infestation

You’ve probably seen alarming reports about ghost kitchens (which are kitchens that make the world believe they’re real restaurants when they’re really just kitchens that exist to service food app orders), and we don’t think this one’s slowing down anytime soon. Part of us says more food options can only be good, but the larger part of us says that Santa Feans will likely continue to order from the places they know and love and have also visited in their real lives. Remember, too, that the delivery apps aren’t always great for the local businesses (OK, they never are), and that sometimes you can probably just pick up a thing yourself.

The Fusing

This is America, dammit, where the thought of one kind of food served well is no longer a thing! And while we think the term “fusion,” when applied to food, sounds pretty obvious, Fork Mom told us this morning that she doesn’t understand what food fusion is. So allow us to explain: It’s when you fuse culinary styles. You know, like, ummmm....green chile in sushi (which you can get at Kohnami) or various Asian food styles being served together (like at Jinja) and probably some non-Asian options, too (we were going to mention chef Martin Ríos’ Build a Bowl, but that was, sadly, a short-lived pandemic thing, and also, now that we think about it, kind of Asian-inspired). Anyway, the point remains that with supply chain issues, rising gas prices and chefs growing just, like, so totally tired of their menus being the same thing forever, we think you’re gonna start seeing cool combos in the coming weeks.

Captain Planet—Takeout Materials Edition

While Vinaigrette has been at the forefront of sustainability, we see the people demanding more from their restaurants, which will hopefully result in compostable takeout boxes or, like at Vinaigrette, programs which reward regulars for thinking beyond styrofoam. Remember during the lockdowns how there were all these news stories about the environment getting better because we weren’t all out there generating trash and stuff? It would be like that, only we’d be out there...just not generating the trash.

Plant-Based Goes Even Harder

We’ve been saying this for ages, but now that we’re DOUBLE on Team Vegan Corndog, we just think more of the “I’ll never eat plant-based meat” people should give it a try. One of us! One of us! One of us! Naw, but for real, the options have never been better, and we see it exploding even further than before.

The lyrics specify that Captain Planet and the Planeteers are going to “put asunder bad guys who like to loot and plunder.”

Also

-We want to extend best wishes and salutations to Mucho Gourmet Sandwich Shop, which opened 33 years ago this month. Wow! That’s a lot of years of that Thanksgiving sandwich (and probably others), plus at least one person who accidentally drove their car into the business on St. Michael’s Drive/Llano Street. Congrats, Mucho!

-On the advice of our editor, we stopped by Tune Up Café over last weekend to sample the tres leches cake. Excuse us, Tune Up, but no cake has any right being that good. It was as moist as you’d assume from its three-milk-moniker, and the fresh fruit was an EXCELLENT touch. Honestly? As we’re writing this we’re thinking about getting more of that cake. Jeeze.

-The New Mexico Department of Agriculture has some new program called the $5 Challenge, which is really just a fancy way of saying they’re urging visitors to spend $5 extra on über-local food things. Then if they prove it with a photo and enter that photo through the site we linked above, the people who spent that extra $5 can win “exciting prizes.” What prizes, you may be wondering? Festival tickets (though no festival was specified in the email)! T-shirts! Grilling kits! ENGRAVED FREAKING CUTTING BOARDS! Retailers can participate, too, and we hear they could possibly win a chile roaster, which honestly sounds kind of more like winning a job, but whatever—New Mexico food forever!

-Speaking of state-run departments, a whole slew of them are comin’ together for the 2nd annual NM Grown Golden Chile Award, which is a prize all about connecting kids to to locally grown food. God, we miss Dixon apples. Anyway, you can learn more by clicking this link riiiiiiiiiighhhhhhhhhhhhhht HERE.

Keeping with our horrible cartoon theme, behold the single greatest thing to come out of the 1990s—Legend of the Hawaiian Slammers, a pog-based cartoon that sucks so bad it circles all the way back around to good! Enjoy, copy editor and whoever else!

More Tidbits

-Seems Bay Area chefs are no longer interested in buying yellow potato rolls from Pennsylvania-based company Martin’s Famous Pastry Shoppe. And before you think that’s maybe not a big deal, note that Martin’s has been the bun supplier for a little ol’ restaurant called Shake Shack. Anyway, turns out the family behind the Martin’s brand (they’re they Martins) like giving money to politicians who are down with QAnon and Trump and such. Now, to each their own, right? But if you’re the type of person who doesn’t want to support insane, racist garbage, maybe it’s def time to find a new bun. This apparently sucks, though, because despite the Martins need to spend money with lunatics, the bun is super good. Drag.

-Find here a link to a gripping tale of fine artists who like doing still life paintings based on Cheetos and other snacks and stuff. We’re not against it, especially since we like the idea of future art-focused anthropologists and archaeologists coming across this stuff and being like, “What the shit is this?!”

-Remember back when the US government stepped in to make sure all schoolchildren were getting fed during the pandemic? Welp, that’s about to end thanks to Congress fully whiffing it on extending school meal waivers. What does that mean? It means that come June 30, most American schools will go right back to charging kids to eat (let the words “charging kids to eat” really wash over you). This will undoubtedly be terrible immediately. We already know there are far too many American kids go hungry on a regular basis (side note, it’s particularly bad here in New Mexico), and we simply cannot understand why this is the world we built.

-All hail Eater-dot-com’s Rebecca Flint Marx, who posits that the best thing you can put on ice cream, and we’re quoting from the headline here, “is that shitty cake you just made.” Ah! Le mot juste! Well done, Rebecca. See, turns out that even garbage cake ain’t so bad when you slap it on a bowl of frozen cream.

A Totally Scientific Breakdown of The Fork’s Correspondence

In this week’s print edition of SFR, get a little help when it comes to navigating Santa Fe’s seemingly ever-expanding pizza scene, this time with Chris Van Dyne at Cosmic Pie Pizza.

Number of Letters Received

27

*Fruit salad had y’all feeling frisky

Most Helpful Tip of the Week (a barely edited letter from a reader)

“You probably don’t even know where to get strawberries.”

*Ummmm......at the store?!

Actually Helpful Tip(s)

A little black pepper on fruit salad. We thought they were insane, and yet...it kind of slaps.

*Sorry we doubted you, black pepper suggester!

Abreast of the trends,

The Fork