Mushroom Coffee and Other 2018 Food Trends

Would you drink camel’s milk? Where do you stand on eating tacos for dessert? And could you stomach mushrooms in your coffee? Well, you’ll have to if you want to be seen as trendy in 2018, if the emerging lists of top food trends for the year ahead are to be believed.

Everyone from Waitrose to Kim Kardashian is currently busy dictating what we’ll be eating in 2018, so naturally we’re stocking our cupboards with all of these items so that they can be the coolest cupboards in town come January.

It was Kim K who was seen drinking camel’s milk and now it’s available to buy in UK supermarkets and corner shops, such is the power of the Kardashians. Camel’s milk could be a good alternative for anyone who’s allergic to cow’s milk, but we reckon that having to swap our usual milk for camel’s would leave us with the hump. Sorry.

As for Waitrose, Britain’s most middle class supermarket has predicted that two of the biggest food trends of 2018 will be carbs and protein. “Carbs are back!” the posh grocer declares in its Food and Drink Report 2017-18. I’m sorry, where did they go?! We’re not sure that protein can be classed as a new food trend either – it’s more of a vital food group.

Waitrose also believes that juniper berries will be big next year, no doubt thanks to the extraordinary rise in popularity of gin. With juniper berries tipped to be the next big home-cooking ingredient, it seems that society’s attempts to shoehorn gin into everything from cheese to mince pies is to be taken to the next level.

Indian street food, herbs (again, is this really a trend?!) and eating four meals in a day have also been named as top 2018 food trends by Waitrose. Now, four meals in a day is definitely something we can get behind. Waitrose suggests this is because people work longer days than in the past, so need to eat more to keep their energy levels up, but to us it sounds like an excuse to agonise over whether we’d prefer two breakfasts, two lunches or two dinners.

Waitrose also used the opportunity of publishing its Food and Drink Report 2017-18 to settle some of the biggest conundrums affecting the UK right now. Will Theresa May secure a successful Brexit deal? We don’t know, but we do know that beef has been named as the nation’s favourite pie filling, beating chicken with 55 per cent of the vote compared to 38 per cent.

Chips were voted as the best pie accompaniment, with 46 per cent of votes, followed by mashed potato (24 per cent), while four per cent of respondents said they didn’t know what they typically ate with pie. We’re not quite sure how they cannot know. Are the people serving them pie so bad at cooking/presentation that they can’t distinguish a chip from a mushy pea?

Now, back to ‘new’ food trends. Whole Foods Market has also released a list of its predictions for 2018, which includes Middle Eastern cuisine, sweet dessert tacos (yum) and ‘puffed and popped snacks’. We don’t know about you, but we never stopped eating Wotsits and Skips, so we’ve been on-trend for years. *Looks smug, while trying to scrub orange Wotsit stains off hands*.

It was Whole Foods that said ‘functional mushrooms’ – don’t all mushrooms have a function? – will be a hot trend next year. Fancy varieties of mushroom are apparently increasingly making their way into smoothies and coffees. Mushroomy coffee? We remain to be convinced.

It’s not just coffee that’s getting an ‘interesting’ makeover in 2018, as edible flowers in cups of tea will also be ‘a thing’. In particular, Whole Foods believes everyone will be scattering pink hibiscus flowers on their brews. We’re sure this looks very Instagrammable, but we are not willing to choke on our cuppas for the sake of a pretty picture.

Hang on, do we then have to add camel’s milk to the drink too? So that’ll be a mushroom-based beverage, topped with flowers and mixed through with the milk of a camel. Normal tea might be ‘so last year’, but we’re quite happy to stay there, thanks.