We’ve all got to eat, but in London, New York, Paris and beyond, niche, local and artisan edibles have never been more desirable. Whether it’s the round-the-block queues at Golden Diner and Popham's bakery in London, the unstoppable rise of viral snacks, the six month-long waiting lists at Carbone, the Cafe Cecilia cookbook launch at Dover Street Market, the Prada Caffè at Harrods or Burberry’s contentious collaboration with Norman’s Cafe, where and what you eat has become a marker of good taste and an immediate high. And with global food prices on the rise due to rising production and shipping costs, food really is becoming a new form of luxury…
Around the world the connotations carried by different foods have always been “heavily dependent on scarcity,” Pen Vogler, author of Stuffed: A History of Good Food and Hard Times in Britain told Dazed. “The economists’ old friend, the supply and demand curve, is a fairly reliable indicator of what foods are used to signal high status.” Our relationship to food has long been connected to both money and class. So what does our collective hunger for food culture reveal about this moment in time? (Dazed, 2024)
STATS OF THE MATTER
The rise of the at-home chef
The COVID-19 pandemic created a cooking boom, with 41% of consumers reporting that they started cooking from scratch at home. Food ideas content on TikTok has close to 700M pieces of content (probably more!)
Snack attack
Almost 50% of all US consumers have three or more snacks daily – a figure which has risen 8% in the last two years – with mainly millennials and Gen Z driving the trend (Girl dinners: the real reason we’ve forgotten how to feed ourselves, Dazed Digital 2023). Is this the pleasure principle?
THE PLEASURE PRINCIPLE, ALSO KNOWN AS LITTLE TREAT CULTURE
The Lipstick Effect Little Treat Culture
Amid economic insecurity and an increasingly terrifying geopolitical landscape, our focus shifted from large to small. With every bite of almond croissant, we engaged in "treat-brain behaviour". There is an ease which comes with bowing down to pleasure-seeking, particularly when we reframed that same behaviour as self-care, escapism, and distraction from hardship. Little treat culture is an economic theory that suggests consumers are more likely to buy affordable luxury goods during economic downturns, such as high-end lipstick (or little treats) instead of more expensive goods such as a house. Our friend Eugene has also talked about treat culture here.
*The Pleasure Principle: A psychoanalytic theory used by Sigmund Freud to explain how people are motivated by the desire to avoid pain and seek pleasure to satisfy their needs.
Vox pops!
with trend forecaster nina marston
I sat down with trend forecaster and luxury expert Nina Marston. We chatted about status symbols and new luxury, but what I found fascinating is how we kept coming back to the idea of food and its power in culture.
“Food brings you immediate joy. It’s temporary, but it’s immediate and it’s all about comfort and control.”
Nina Marston, Trend Forecaster
“I do see that trend of people investing in food items, for example over clothing or shoes taking off much more. You can see it moving from New York to the UK and then into Europe.”
“Korea has a rising cultural influence. In terms of food is growing from strength to strength, there are Korean restaurants popping up everywhere and the power of K-pop continues to be relentless.”
the rise of the 'it girl' chef
Domesticity reigns. Homemaking is an aesthetic, stay-at-home-girlfriends have a hashtag (#SAHG), we’re eating girl dinners and the trad wife is back. And right on time, all the It Girls have become part-time chefs…
Nara Smith makes a hot dog for Lucky Smith (from scratch, because of course)
who to follow
Sienna Murdoch - Artist
Angela Dimayuga - Chef
Dead Hungry (Alex Paganelli) - Chef, Photographer, Filmmaker
Lucia Bell Epstein - Photographer, Director
Riaz Phillips - Writer
Cheese Magazine - Food Magazine
Kolam Paris - Sri Lankan nano canteen
Bad Maashla - Indian Restaurant
Ixta Belfrage - Cook
Slutty Chef - Food Columnist (Vogue)
Missy Flynn - Cocktail Innovator
Cafe Cecilia - Restaurant
Laila Gohar - Visual Artist (Specialty: Food)
Ghetto Gastro - Culinary Collective
Family Style - Arts & Culture Magazine
Slop Magazine - Produce Magazine
unpopular opinion
“The body positivity movement has monumentally failed. It's too easy to say that everything and everyone is beautiful. In a culture where food has been so widely available, skinniness is the easiest way to feel superior; using all your resources to deny your needs and impulses.”
Nina Marston, Trend Forecaster
Extreme dieting became the latest way for the mega-rich to signal their wealth and status.
(Why don’t rich people eat anymore? Dazed, 2024) Robyn Pullen at Culted writes about how skinny is back, and apparently so is body shaming. "Whilst poking fun at “ozempic face,” making jokes about the Brandy Melville doors, or pleading with Victoria Secret to bring back the “real angels” might all seem like harmless forms of internet humour, there’s a viscous undertone to the resurgence of aspirational skinniness online." (Culted, 2024)
hottest accessory of the month
Loewe’s Heritage Tomato Luxury Clutch
From meme to reality, via JW Anderson
Chopova Lowena x Hellmann’s collab
“We just love mayo,” the design duo told Dazed ahead of their SS25 show at London Fashion Week. (Dazed, 2024)
The Iconic Air Fryer
Global volume: By 2029, the air fryer market is expected to reach 113.6 million pieces. As of 2023, 60% of US households own an airfryer. 60%?! Ninja’s made yet another kitchen gadget, this time it’s the Creami, as used by Iris Law (is this organically endorsed!?)
might be of interest
How McDonald’s became a landmark of British youth culture
From the carnivalesque atmosphere of a post-night out Maccies, to the class-coded bogeyman we channel our national anxieties through, we explore the ways in which the fast-food chain has become embedded in British culture. (Dazed, 2019)
Just because...it's a personal favourite
WHIPPED BUTTER FROM ATELIER SEPTEMBER, COPENHAGEN
Words by Izzy Farmiloe
Published 11 October 2024.
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