The Martlet

These days, it’s all about trends: the most talked-about news story or celebrity scandal, the hippest song in the new iPod commercial, the latest restaurant downtown. They’re hard to escape and even harder to ignore. I’ll admit, I’m an avid food follower. Since it’s the New Year, there are plenty of new food trends on the horizon, but I’m not interested in those. I’m here to discuss the food trends of yesteryear, the trends that just won’t quit. The food trends I want gone.

Can’t sweet potato fries just assimilate already? They’re not that extraordinary and they’re served at virtually every restaurant, even on B.C. Ferries. A few years ago, having the option of orange frites with your burger was unique and even the spicy chipotle mayo dip was foreign to us. Now, I loathe the option, especially when it still costs extra to upgrade. Restaurants of Victoria, please find another fried root vegetable to serve. I hear beets are making a comeback.

If I had a nickel for every time someone mentioned cupcakes, I would have tuition money for a year. Cupcakes were pretty damn awesome in grade school when your mom made them for bake sales, but I’m grown up now. I want an entire cake. Cupcakes are expensive and I’m always left wanting more. The icing-to-cake ratio is never right. Either you get a mouthful of all cake in some weird flavour like green tea and lavender, or a big glob of icing sticking to the roof of your mouth. With a piece of cake, the cake and icing are perfectly balanced. Not to mention the image of a cupcake with a single candle is depressing, even if you are only turning one year old.

I’m usually a fan of food served on a stick. A further variation of the cupcake is the cake pop. Made mainstream by Starbucks, cake pops are a one-bite dessert that costs almost as much as their cousin, the cupcake. Sure, they’re cute and a great way to get your sugar fix, but it’s not actually cake. To make a cake pop, you crumble up dry cake, mix in icing to form a thick paste, then mold it onto a stick. The only dessert that should be served on a stick is a Bluth’s frozen banana.

There’s always a middleman, but restaurants would like their customers to forget about that when it comes to farm-to-table dining. I’m all for local products and purveyors making their way into Victoria area establishments, but can restaurants please stop bragging about how local they are? I visited a well-known restaurant the other night and half the menu was taken up with self-praise for the large amount of local products utilized in their dishes. Let’s be honest: it’s not farm-to-table, it’s farm-to-kitchen-to-table.

The one good thing about trends: they come and go just as freely as UVic’s employee information. By this time next year, artisan chili may be the next big thing, but my money’s on a resurgence in pie — apple I hope.