Hungry History: Food Trends of the Past, Present, and Future

Food Trends of the Past, Present, and Future

While restaurateurs often focus on the future, trying to anticipate the next trend that will capture their customers' attention, it can sometimes be fun to look back at the precursors to the foods we enjoy today. It turns out that many foods we consider to be modern innovations stem from culinary practices established hundreds or thousands of years ago. Some people even claim that certain historical eating habits are healthier than the modern diet and attempt to emulate the diets of old (we're looking at you, paleo dieters.1 Let's take a look at some of the trends and recipes of the past that are ancestors to some of the meals we enjoy today.

Bread Trenchers

Bread has been around for tens of thousands of years, but it turns out it wasn't always used solely for eating.2 In 15th and 16th century Europe, bread was used to make disposable plates called trenchers that frequently appeared on the banquet and dinner tables of the wealthy and upper middle class.3 These trenchers were generally made of brown bread that was several days old and cut into thick, flat squares with slightly hollowed center. Since most people of this time couldn't afford dinner plates, using bread to hold meals and soak up gravy protected the table and tablecloth from being soaked with food remnants.4 While these "bread plates" could be eaten by hungry dinner guests, upper class diners more often gave their used trenchers to the dogs or donated them to the poor.

Bread bowls, the modern-day equivalent to trenchers, rose in popularity in the 1980s and are now becoming popular once more, thanks to social media recipe videos. Pizza bowls, which end up with a bowl-like crust holding the traditional pizza ingredients, went viral in 2016,5 and social media giants like Buzzfeed's Tasty were quick to jump on the trend.6 Today, bread bowls are frequently used to serve complementary dishes such as soup, dip, or queso. Unlike their ancestral trenchers, bread bowls are meant to be eaten as part of the meal, and are usually made of fresh, tasty bread.

Fast Food

Fast food history made its way back into the news with the 2016 release of The Founder, a movie about the founding of McDonald's,7 a name synonymous with fast food in modern times. Fast food is regarded by most people as a modern invention, with its history commonly traced back to 1860 when the first fish and chips shops began popping up in the UK.8 However, people have been relying on ready-made takeaway food for centuries, though the term 'fast food' was coined fewer than 70 years ago.

Members of elite classes once had large homes that included kitchens built as a separate building from the rest of the manor or castle to reduce the risk of a kitchen fire destroying the entire house.9 However, the urban poor rarely had room for an oven or food storage in their small homes, and often could not afford essential items like cooking vessels and utensils. As a result, food stands serving bread, pasties, and pies that could be easily consumed on the go were a popular solution.10 Archaeological discoveries in Pompeii confirmed that even the ancient Romans commonly dined at 'fast food' restaurants called thermopolia, that had counters with recessed food pots open to the street to allow easy access for customers.11

Food Hybrids

It could be argued the cronut, a blend of croissant and donut created by a New York baker in 2013, started the current food mashup craze, or at least served as a harbinger of its existence.12 The pastry inspired questionably fanatical devotion epitomized on one particular day by the discovery of a deceased man on a bench next to the bakery – a discovery which prompted absolutely no one to leave their spot in line .13 Several bakers introduced similar creations as far back as 1991, but the 2013 cronut went viral, leading to a series of other food mashups with varying degrees of success. The cruffin (croissant/muffin), turducken (turkey/duck/chicken), and piecaken (pie/cake) all had their moment in the spotlight; current popular mashup trends include ramen burgers and sushirritos.14 While the fascination with individual mashups seems to come and go quickly, the trend of combining apparently unrelated foods doesn't seem to be dying down. The bakery that first popularized the cronut has since introduced a newer mashup: the apple pie corn dog.15

While food mashups are having a resurgence in popularity, they are hardly new. The cockentrice, a pig/fowl combination, was popular 500 years ago among the elite in Europe.16 The dish consisted of the rear of one animal sewn to the front half of the other. The concoction as a whole was then roasted and basted until the outside was shiny and golden, perfect for impressing guests.

Presentation was everything to rich dinner hosts, a fact made evident by a dramatic variant on the cockentrice: the coqz heaumez, or helmeted cock. This was also a combination of pig and fowl, except in this case the bird was cooked separately, dressed in a military uniform, given a weapon, and set astride the roasted pig as if riding it into battle.17

Food as Medicine

The concept of a balance between bodily humors was popularized in the third century B.C. by Hippocrates, who developed the long-standing theory into a system of medicinal care that would last for thousands of years.18 The theory claimed that the human body is host to four humors – black bile, yellow bile, blood, and phlegm – and that these humors being in balance is critical to health. Your temperament, age, and gender would help determine which humors were out of balance, and certain foods were believed to help balance any excess humors.19 As the gastronomically adventurous hosts of The Supersizers Eat… found out, this led to some strange food combinations, such as fish in a sugary sauce. 20

Many industry publications have predicted that the use of food as medicine will continue to grow in popularity over the coming years.21 Consumers are becoming increasingly aware of how what they eat affects their overall health, and many are attempting to cure or prevent specific health issues with their diets.22 'Superfoods' like acai berries and kale seem to rise and fall quickly in popularity, but the superfood concept continues to fascinate consumers and drive buying behavior.23

One example is the dosha diet, a traditional Indian method of eating for health that involves determining your body and personality type based on ancient theories of medicine, and eating food tailored to that profile.24 The Dosha diet has gained ground over the past few years and is predicted to continue growing its loyal following by many industry professionals.25 The principles of the dosha diet are said to be more than 5,000 years old, a prime example of how history continues to influence the eating habits of today's consumers.26

References

  1. Welcome to the Paleo Diet. The Paleo Diet. Accessed December 2021.
  2. Bread. Britannica. Accessed January 2022.
  3. Food Timeline FAQs: Bread | Medieval bread trenchers. The Food Timeline. Accessed December 2021.
  4. Medieval Bread. Medieval Recipes. Accessed January 2022.
  5. Pizza Pot Pie at Chicago Pizza and Oven Grinder Co.. Food Network. Accessed December 2021.
  6. Tasty Pizza Bread Bowl. Tasty. Accessed December 2021.
  7. The Founder. Wikipedia. Accessed December 2021.
  8. Fast Food. Wikipedia. Accessed December 2021.
  9. Castle Life – Rooms in a Medieval Castle. Castles and Manor Houses. Accessed December 2021.
  10. Fast Food in Medieval Europe. Penn State University Center for Medieval Studies. Accessed December 2021.
  11. Fast Food Joints Existed in Ancient Rome. Business Insider. Accessed December 2022.
  12. Revealed: the official Cronut recipe (and why you will never make one). The Guardian. Accessed January 2022.
  13. Not even a dead body could make these Cronut customers leave their spots in line. Washington Post. Accessed December 2021.
  14. Sushi Burritos and Donut Burgers? 16 Insane Food Mashups. CNN. Accessed January 2022.
  15. Apple Pie Corn Dog. Food & Wine. Accessed December 2021.
  16. Perhaps the Strangest Photo You'll Ever See and How It's Related to Turduckens. The Atlantic. Accessed December 2021.
  17. Coqz Heaumez – A Helmeted Cock. Gode Cookery. Accessed December 2021.
  18. The World of Shakespeare's Humors. U.S. National Library of Medicine. Accessed January 2022.
  19. The Four Humors: Eating in the Renaissance. Folger Shakespeare Library. Accessed December 2021.
  20. The Supersizers Eat. Medievalists.net. Accessed December 2021.
  21. Food as Medicine: What It Means and How to Reap the Benefits. Everyday Health. Accessed January 2022.
  22. Food as Medicine: Preventing and Treating the Most Common Diseases with Diet. NutritionFacts.org. Accessed December 2021.
  23. 53 Superfoods You Should Add to Your Meals. Woman's Day. Accessed December 2021.
  24. Ayurveda & How to Eat for Your Dosha. Goop. Accessed December 2021.
  25. Situation Right for Ayurveda, Traditional Medicine, To Be More Popular. Business Standard. Accessed January 2022.
  26. Ayurveda is the Most Holistic Medicine System Existing. Ayurveda Dosha. Accessed December 2021.
  27. Article Title. Publisher. Accessed December 2021.