Wanna know what many of us had been eating during this pandemic? Here are some of the food that has become popular during the first half of 2020. If you know some more, please comment after this article and we would be thankful to read it.
1. Banana Breads, Banana Muffins, Banana Pancakes
Others say this is the official food during the pandemic. Not only because it is healthy (especially for those who are trying to lose weight) but others found ingenious ways to prepare it, no baking required!
Banana Bread is considered the topmost googled recipe during the corona virus crisis. From simple banana bread to glutenfree, weight-loss varieties. There’s also the banana muffins for bite-size servings, and the breakfast popular – banana pancakes.
Not only that, this pandemic also brought out “the baker” in some of us. From the many varieties of bread rolls (of different colors and flavors, I may say!). We see all of them on social media. They are really mouth-watering and a lot of them turned this passion to home business, too!
2. Home Cooked Fast Food Meals
While missing our favorite Fast Food meals, some were able to popularize the home preparation of our well-loved Fried Chicken, Pinoy-style spaghetti, Burger Steak and more. In a Youtube video by a popular vlogger and restaurant owner – Erwan Heussaff, he recreated these meals using home ingredients and asked his wife and mother-in-law if it tasted close to the real thing. He was able to successfully make it appear very easy to prepare allowing more of his followers, even other vloggers to do the same on their respective homes and channels.
Along the same time, Jollibee started offering ready-to-cook Jollibee items in select stores including their popular products like Chicken Joy and Jollibee Tuna Pie. The same thing with Mcdonalds Philippines who also started selling Ready-to-Cook Chicken Fillet. They even released easy recipes on how to make it taste even better!
We even heard other popular brands like Potato Corner in the Philippines also offering their frozen items for sale in the groceries. These are ingenious ideas not only to let their customers experience their products at home, but also to sell-out their existing inventories which couldn’t keep up with lesser demands during the pandemic.
Here in Qatar, we saw The Brunchery also doing the same for its popular pancake products.
3. Air Fried Food
Some people also gradually embraced a change in lifestyle to becoming more health-conscious in light of the ongoing corona virus pandemic. Instead of using cooking oil for frying, many have diverted to using air fryers for easy preparation of meals. Surprisingly, this multi-purpose, handy machine can actually be used to prepare variety of meals like fried chicken, salmon, steak, and even fries!
4. Dalgona Coffee
The dalgona coffee challenge started in January 2020 when Korean actor Jung Il-woo showed how to make the drink, albeit modified, during a television appearance at his home (source: scmp.com). Given the global popularity of South Korea’s cultural economy, it immediately trended online and became a viral hit everyone’s trying to “whip it out till it hurts”.
Dalgona coffee is a beverage made by whipping equal proportions of instant coffee powder, sugar, and hot water until it becomes creamy and then adding it to cold or hot milk. Occasionally, it is topped with coffee powder, cocoa, crumbled biscuits, or honey (wiki).
Photo by Patrick Porto from Pexels
5. Baked Sushi
The latest craze is here! Baked sushi or sushi baked recipes are in many Youtube vlogs and social media posts lately. According to yummy.ph, “The idea behind Sushi Bake is that it’s deconstructed sushi that’s baked in a pan or casserole. It’s a ginormous flattened out sushi, made with a layer of fluffy Japanese rice, baked and shredded fish, topped with tobiko eggs. Once baked, this is served with nori sheets.”
The idea behind #SupportSmallBusinesses
It is not something new. We already saw some popular hashtags trending on social media. But the idea is to “actively” support these entrepreneurs by buying and promoting their products. While influencers can do it with big establishments and brands, we can all the more help the small ones who don’t even have that much budget or social media reach to do their marketing and promotions.
Knowing the stories behind each and every business owner is truly inspiring, and sharing that along with their equally yummy products are just small steps in supporting them especially during these trying times.
Food will never go out of style. It will just undergo several transformations but the need will always be there. Dalgona coffee is just coffee with a twist… I mean more of it, like a challenge, plus that Korean flare. Baked sushi is our well-loved sushi playfully presented and eaten the way you like it. And those who love a bit of change and challenge, and those who can go along with the trend will surely enjoy and benefit from this.
