From clay-baked duck, smashed open at the table, to the world’s best bacon sandwich, here is 2015’s must-eat – and must-Instagram – food. Some even have Nigella’s seal of approval
The group of lads in the corner of the grungy Glaswegian bar aren’t your usual restaurant-goers. They’re honking with hilarity, phones clicking like dolphins. Who knows what’s causing the mirth – maybe the Buckfast ice-cream (notorious fortified wine, known locally as “Electric Soup”), or the burger topped with Smith’s bacon crisps, or the Irn-Bru pork. The “Mad Chef” at Bloc specialises in OTT food designed not so much to be savoured as to cause a commotion. Especially online. His Pot Noodle burger might be revolting, but it is a wholly successful piece of attention-grabbing. Love it or loathe it – and there is a startling number for whom the very idea causes a foam of fury – the marriage of food and social media isn’t going away any time soon.
The internet has become increasingly food-obsessed since the early days when a slightly fetishistic subculture known as “foodies” would post pictures of Tayyabs’s legendary lamb chops on hilariously clunky sites such as eGullet. Today, it is impossible to scroll through any timeline without encountering other people’s lunches, and, worldwide, there is an increase in dishes that appear to be deliberately engineered to get you snapping before tucking in. Take the Carmel Winery in Israel with its Foodography tasting menu, featuring as many flowers and twiddles as you can shake a tweezer at, and its “Limbo” crockery that incorporates a mobile-phone stand. The international chain Chili’s has just appointed a consultancy that came up with egg wash to make its burger buns more photogenic and “shareable”; the cost – a cool $750,000. You’re scoffing? Research suggests that photographing your food makes it taste better (it’s all to do with ritual and savouring).
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