The latest food crazes

One of the joys of being part of the EYB community is the ability to stay on top of the latest food crazes and making a game of guessing just how lasting they may be. After all (at the risk of showing our age) we remember when extra virgin olive oil and real Parmigiano Reggiano were considered off-the-wall items. And pomegranates have certainly caught on. So it’s fun to ask the question: Will any of these items be obligatory purchases in the future?

First up, from NPR’s The Salt, is the question, Is The Coconut Water Craze All It’s Cracked Up to Be? As they write, “nationwide, boxes and even cans of the newly touted “natural” sports drink are now proliferating on supermarket shelves, in specialty food stores and yoga studios. U.S. coconut water sales doubled in 2011, and will reach an estimated $110 million in sales this year. And, according to market research, the demand is likely to continue. But is it really any better for you than plain old water?” (Hint, probably not).

And over at Food Republic, they looking at The World’s Top 5 Culinary Obsessions. Specifically they find that people in New York are going bonkers for ramps (“Twitter feeds are ablaze with the sort of excitement usually reserved for Jeter sightings or cobras on the lam“), Tokyo residents love their matsutake mushrooms (selling out despite costing $200 each), those in St. Croix adore mangos (mango beer anyone?), Barcelonians hold elaborate festivals for calçots (calçotada), and, in Tel Aviv, a flash mob actually demonstrated against too much passion fruit.

The lesson? Too much of anything has its dangers.