The Middle Eastern lifestyle calendar is pretty much chopped into two seasons: Before Summer and During Summer. The former spans late September to roughly early May. The latter is when everyone picks up on their social calendars and, as we know in the UAE, food is always on top of the list. Here are the top trends to watch this season.
‘Locavorism’ and Organics
For some time, a few of us in the food industry have been sounding the horn of eating local. As a farmer’s daughter, I champion the cause, and so does the blog My Custard Pie. As people get more aware of how their food is grown, they are more concerned about the health and environmental impact of genetically modified foods, factory farming, pesticides, preservatives and food additives. The trend to eat less processed foods is driving people to demand more local produce, and providing a sustainable market for local farmers and businesses that facilitate the sale of their produce. Initiated by Baker & Spice some years ago, with their commitment to sourcing regional and — where possible — local and organic produce for their own restaurants, they created the UAE’s first Farmer’s Market, where farmers could actually sell directly to consumers. Now, we have additions like the box-food scheme Ripe, founded by a marketing specialist and a brand new competitor, Greenheart UAE, which is led by Elena Kinane, who ran the old Naswa Organic farm shop. Ripe now has a shop and along with Greenheart, they are currently supplying boxes via orders. Baker & Spice will resume their Farmer’s Market on the Terrace in November, at Souk Al Bahar on Fridays, and at their new Marina Promenade location on Saturdays. Expect to see more farm-to-table concept restaurants opening up soon.
Head to Tail
As part of the new wave of sustainability, people who would eat nothing but fillet will branch off into eating the whole animal. This is already happening in all cuisines across the world, but some city dwellers get squeamish about eating offal. Even if it is merely ground up in a sausage, people will begin to experiment more. We hope that our local restaurants will also catch on to the trend.
Butchers
Part of getting to know the entire animal will mean foodie shoppers will have to get to know their butchers and their meat. Getting the right cuts will be critical, and getting certain offal will require special orders from a butcher. The butchery shop will feature prominently for those who really want to eat animal produce in a way that sustains the environment. There aren’t too many trained butchers available, but the few who are around will gain real prominence and prestige. Newcomers Prime Gourmet and the iconic Park ‘N’ Shop will feature prominently.
Cookery and Bakery Schools
As the UAE develops an insatiable appetite for all things gourmet, these continue to pop up. From informal lessons in people’s home kitchens to demos and specialised courses, consumers have a range to choose from. L’atelier des Chefs at Le Meridien now has stiff competition with the spanking new Top Chef and Miele Gallery, which provide well- appointed individual stations, and are attracting some of the finer culinary trainers in the UAE like Chef Andy Campbell and Dima Sharif. Tavola’s cake decorating courses by Wilton and PME remain popular.
Artisanal Breads and Bakeries
As the market gets more and more developed, artisanal breads will become more popular, and old-fashioned bread bakers will get more and more hip. More than flour and yeast, artisanal breads are miles ahead better than anything that could ever come out of a supermarket.
The Finjan App
Writer and entrepreneur, Daveeda Shaheen created The Finjan a really innovative iPhone app that actually reads your coffee cup. It was nominated for Best App in the iPhone awards. Coming from a Middle Eastern tradition of coffee cup reading, the app also complements a really awesome gift package featuring a well-written book and all you need to make authentic Arabic coffee. Daveeda also has a social responsibility project to promote Yemeni coffee as coffee is native to Yemen.
Gluten-Free
As the number of people with intolerances rise — since more are getting tested these days — this trend will continue to pick up as the demand increases due to celiac disease and other gluten intolerances. Initiatives like Gluten Free UAE have been lobbying supermarkets to separate gluten-free products from those with gluten, and educating both food and food service providers to the dangers of cross-contamination for the person diagnosed with celiac. Entire households have been converting to these diets when one person suffers from intolerance, which increases the demands for the products and services. Expect to see a rise in suitable menu offerings from established hotels as well.
Food Blogs
When we started our blog there were just a handful of food bloggers in existence. Now, the group Fooderati Arabia has recorded over 100 in less than two years. As some blogs become successful, others are opening up à la minute. This is an interesting thing for the Middle Eastern food industry, as it gives more people a voice in the marketplace and gives marketers a chance to come up with attractive ideas targeting bloggers. The offering is diverse, ranging from those of us who work full-time in the food and beverage industry and media, marketing and photography, to hobby bloggers who simply like to share what they eat.
FooDiva’s additions
Our fellow blogger FooDiva added two to the list…
1. We are seeing more home-grown restaurant concepts develop here on the back of Okku (which is now opening in London), eg. Table 9 at Hilton Dubai Creek. Having said that, the celebrity chef trend is continuing fuelled by a primarily expat population – Gary Rhodes is opening at St Regis Abu Dhabi Corniche fusing Arabic influences into his cuisine, and Atul Kochhar at JW Marriott Marquis with an Indian concept.
2. The restaurant experience is becoming more technology driven here from online reservations to i-pad menus.
Agree on all of these and would add a couple more:
1. We are seeing more home-grown restaurant concepts develop here on the back of Okku (which is now opening in London), eg. Table 9 at Hilton Dubai Creek. Having said that, the celebrity chef trend is continuing fuelled by a primarily expat population – Gary Rhodes is opening at St Regis Abu Dhabi Corniche fusing Arabic influences into his cuisine, and Atul Kochhar at JW Marriott Marquis with an Indian concept.
2. The restaurant experience is becoming more technology driven here from online reservations to i-pad menus.
Thanks for sharing.
Great additions FooDiva. Thanks for contributing to the list!
I have just written a review of Prime Gourmet for publishing next week, enjoyed reading this, thank you
We have too! How amazing is that!
I could not agree more with you Kari. I specifically like that you brought up the butchers’ issue, as nobody seems to be talking about the pink elephant in the room! I would love for the day to come when you go to the butcher and they know the cuts you are asking them for! Sometimes a whole concoction is about he cut!
Good run down, enjoyed reading, and thanks for the link 🙂
Dima, oh how we have suffered the same plight- trying to get the right cuts for particular dishes that require particular cuts. Even with Chef Lij’s great butchering skills, he cannot resurrect meat that has already been totally massacred!
Oh lovely article! So true – all the points. My aunt is visiting from India. I had been taking her around, including dropping into the IFFF – and we were just discussing why ‘locavorism’ and going organic is suddenly a trend and a very cool thing to do, when a few years back these were but the most natural thing to do. Growing up in Kolkata, every thing that Mom would cook would either be fresh from our own gardens or brought from the local farmers. Infact the first time we bought some ‘hybrid’ vegetable, we were so excited! I wish we had shown resentment in the first case – then today we wouldn’t be shouting hoarse on going organic.
Good that Dubai is moving towards more and more sustainable living, but how much and how fast does it trickle down to all financial brackets, I wonder. I really appreciate FooDiva’s additions, my personal favourites – but these are all very high-end places. Not very easily accessible to all.
Ishita, this is precisely the point- we have been so influenced by modern factory farming concepts popularised in the US that the good old basic way we grew food for centuries is now novel! Imagine that! Your points on affordability of the additions are duly noted.
I never thought of these listed as trend, but indeed, I can recognize trending from last two years like you listed. I have been living near the butcher I did not knew existed at Park’N Shop, finally then I dare to make my stakes at home.
I am supporter of ‘Locavorism’ and Organics, when I grew up in Finland we had huge campaigns to raise awareness of local produce, in my mind still slogan “Suosi Suomalaista, osta kotimaista” meaning favour Finnish, buy domestic produce. It’s mindset and being aware of. Up there north (Finland) loads of produce is imported, but people choose seasonal and local first.
I rather would call it near foods if not from here at least from region.
Thank you for good reads….going now to my iPad for The Finjan 🙂
-techie foodie Minna
Yes Minna, if you like a good steak, the extras you pay for a good butcher with great meat are worth it. We do promote local, regional and where organic food. However, sometimes things have to come from a little further. Good local meat offering still eludes us but we are happily on the lookout! Love that Finnish saying!
I love how you also focus attention on the “whole animal”. I am one who has and will cook with offal and less popular meat items such as beef tongue. And why not! It is tasty, good meat and comes from the same animal that gave you its prime cut. I attended a workshop at the recent Salone del Gusto (Turin) this year addressing the very issue. I am preparing a post on it, will keep you “posted”. In the meantime, thanks for sharing this article. It is not only a great read: it is very inspirational!
Francine, thanks for that. We missed out on your tongue gathering. Believe it or not, where offal is concerned, I am more open than Chef Lij, though his favourite meal is oxtails and he relishes a good sausage and burger. I am sure he would have tasted yours though. He will try almost anything once though.
The produce looks good
Thanks Corve.
From head to tail sounds like the rule of thumb when I was growing up. Mama did not waste anything.
Exactly Sandra, how did we lose our way so much with food?
Excellent and informative overview. Didn’t know about Finjan, so that was really useful for me. I wish home-grown unique restaurant concepts – like Table 9, Cafe Retro, 1762 or Wild Peeta would make the trend list, but it may take a year or two more for this to really grow into a full-fledged trend.
On the case of locavorism, I’d love to see more discussions about (1) local vs. organic – I used to use the terms synonymously, until I realized that local was not always organic (2) what is ‘really’ sustainable. While I love the idea of being as close to the source of food as possible, there is research [Food Production in the Middle East, Tony Allen] that shows that in some cases, importing is actually a better solution than stressing Middle Eastern land or water resources in trying to use them for local agriculture. I don’t know what the right answer is, I just think more research needs to be done to take complete stock of environmental losses and gains from scaling up local farming efforts in the UAE – before determining whether ‘local’ is truly sustainable. Sarah initiated this thought through her excellent post on whether local tomatoes were better for the environment than imported – she found that local ones were better (http://www.thehedonista.com/2011/04/source.html) …and I do think a larger scale effort needs to be done to review this along similar lines.
Thanks for your input and for sharing Sarah’s post Arva. There are local farms that actually use well-water to irrigate and very conservative methods to utilize water and reduce temperatures in their greenhouses. I had a farm visit with one, Al Shuwaib that employs an agronomist from Jordan who pretty much has very basis but effective methods. Farming in the Middle East has been going on for centuries, from the Persians right up to now and places like Israel, Oman and Jordan have thriving industries, so much so that they can also export in the region and beyond. It is harder to farm in the UAE but not difficult and it doesn’t have to be with costly desalinated water.
Great to know about the use of well-water. It’s exactly these kinds of informational nuggets that really help further the discussion. To be clear, I’m not arguing against local, I do think it makes sense, just not across the board. Moreover, at the scale it’s being done right now in the UAE alone, the question of large-scale environmental impact from local agriculture may not really come into play. But at a more macro, regional level, I’d love to hear more conversations where we talk about which crops/livestock make sense to grow/rear locally (maybe they are already happening & I’ve missed them). I’m admittedly somewhat sceptical of a hard-line ‘pro-local on everything’ stance – so while I do hope the locavorism trend grows, I also hope that it focuses on the nuances I mentioned earlier over time.
For instance, while I completely agree that farming has been going on in the Middle East dating all the way back to Mesopotamia, the demand for food production today is much higher and taxes the land and water resources in ways that cannot be compared to centuries earlier. The next level of ‘locavorism’ conversation needs to focus on what types of crops will provide optimal returns to scarce water resources in the region (except Turkey, where it’s been found that self-sufficiency can actually be attained in a sustainable, feasible way).
Also, to the point of Israel & also of exports, quoting from A Taste of Thyme (a collection of research essays written by prominent food historians):
“National recognition that the significance of Israeli agriculture was emotional and symbolic, rather than economic, came in early 1991 when the advice of the water technocrats was heeded publicly and it was announced that Israel would cut its annual water allocation to agriculture by 50 per cent. It was recognized that Israel could no longer export scarce water, which is what is was doing when it exported irrigated agricultural products such as citrus and avocados.”