On trends

and boredom.

What it feels like to write a trends list every January

New year, new trends. Everything happens on a 12-month cycle. Christmas content, summer content, tennis content, festival season, travel stories, regional highlights, barbecues, dinner parties, award season, winter getaways, on and on, again and again until we die.

How many ways can we fetishise a mollusc? Which carb is in this year? Are we still into bakeries or are there too many bakeries? What alternative grain will we be forcing into every innocuous dish, now? Make dairy sexy again while still promoting plant-based milks. Is this a butter year, an olive oil year, or a drippings year? Is this the year we try to make fine dining happen again? Oh, wait, the interest rates are going to keep rising. Mid-tier, accessible dining is the only way to talk about new talent, anyway. Kids these days love to use whacky ingredients. Speaking of which, are we still into fish sauce? Oh, it’s fish salt, now. Is tinned fish over yet? Have people grown sick of building their own open-faces sandwiches for $30? What about normal sandwiches? Do we need to change it up? How about big sandwiches? But not focaccia. If I have to eat another chef’s oily fingerprint, I will scream. Produce, don’t forget produce. We will always do a feature on mushrooms and tomatoes. Of course! Don’t forget truffle season. But what about meat?What about lab meat? What about regenerative farming? What about seafood? What sea creature’s eggs are we going to be push this year? What staple Asian ingredient is going to be White People Famous in 2024? Don’t forget an alternative varietal that has been on the market since the beginning of time. What about cocktails? We need to settle on a classic cocktail made from three ingredients that the folks at home will be able to throw together but will be willing to pay $25 for at a bar. Oh, and new bars. New restaurants. New faces. We want new, new, new. But also something retro and kitsch so we don’t lose our older subscribers. We love nostalgia.

This is it. This is the extent of it. Congratulations, it’s time to write your predictions for 2025.

You can see why I decided to get off the train. It’s like riding the city loop in reverse trying to intercept your express train at Parliament, but always getting stuck at Southern Cross. There is no escape. I’m not going home. Not today. Not ever. Maybe I should walk.