What did you eat for lunch today? Did you choose this dish because it was healthy, cheap or because it was just very tasty? Are you a fussy¹ eater or an adventurous² gourmet³?

 

I love exploring trends in food. 'Fusion⁴ cuisine⁵' is not for everybody. My Italian grandmother would turn her nose up in disgust at the thought of tandoori pizza with mango topping but this marriage of tastes is perfectly⁶ fine in the 21st century. Chef and food writer Ching-He Huang, who presented a series on Chinese Food for the BBC, is a fan of the movement. She says: "Fusion has been happening for centuries, for as long as people have travelled, but with the internet, and global travel, the exchange of ideas makes the process much faster."

 

Wolfgang Puck is seen by many as one of the chefs who made 'fusion' elegant. He cut his teeth in his native Vienna and made a name for himself when he opened his own restaurant in Los Angeles in the 1970s. This European delved⁷ into Asian cuisine and became one of the first in a long line of celebrity⁸ chefs. He said in an interview with the Wall Street Journal that initially⁹ he got negative responses from traditional American-Chinese restaurant owners but he is not bitter. "I believe authenticity¹⁰ is about evolution, not repeating your grandmother's recipe," he explains. "Cooking is like painting or writing a song. Just as there are only so many notes or colours, there are only so many flavours – it's how you combine them that sets you apart."

 

My granny's cup of tea would be the Slow Food Movement. Founded by her countryman Carlo Petrini in the 1980s and still going strong, it seeks to preserve regional cuisine and the use of ingredients that are grown locally. Petrini wants to see farmers connected more directly with consumers.

 

All these trends give us food for thought. We might be wasting an exciting opportunity to wake up our taste buds when we scoff¹¹ a sandwich at our desks. Tomorrow, why not find an exotic restaurant and enjoy a feast? You dress trendy so eat trendy!

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