The New York Times has released its 2022 food forecast and "ingredient of the year" is the mushroom, chosen because of its use as a tasty dish addition, psychedelic drug, and compostable packaging material.
In the intro is the following whammy of a sentence: "food industry leaders in the United States say 2022 will be another pragmatic, roll-up-your sleeves kind of year, shaped by the needs of people working from home and by the culinarily-astute-but-fickle Gen Z, whose members want food with sustainable ingredients and a strong cultural back story, prepared without exploitation and delivered in a carbon-neutral way — within 30 minutes."
Besides mushrooms, other trending consumables include seaweed, vegan meat substitutes, and 80s cocktails like Blue Lagoons, Tequila Sunrises, Long Island iced tea and amaretto sours.
More NYT predictions: a boom in edible utensils/dishes (we want plates!) and Asian candy like the dalgona candy featured in Squid Game.
The NYT predicted the food "vibe of the year" to be "kindness and understanding." Whether it's the official "vibe of the year" or not, I certainly hope we can get behind kindness.
