Posted on 12/06/2023 12:11:34 PM PST by Diana in Wisconsin
Tamarind might sound — and taste — unfamiliar to many, but one influential company known for its spices and seasonings predicts it’s going to have a breakthrough year.
McCormick & Company, the top-selling maker of seasonings and spices, has named tamarind as its 2024 “Flavor of the Year.” The report, released yearly since 2000, identifies trending spices and seasonings about to hit restaurant menus or in cookbooks and perhaps become the new pumpkin spice.
Tamarind comes from a tree that commonly grows throughout Africa, Mexico, Asia and India, and produces pods containing the acidic and tangy-sweet flavor that can be added to a number of foods such potato chips, ice cream and even in coffee.
McCormick deploys a team of about 50 people, such as chefs and food technologists, around the world to seek out trending flavors, with Executive Chef Hadar Cohen Aviram taking charge to select the flavor of the year.
Tamarind was chosen because its flavor profile “brings out all of what we saw for this year,” noting three trends it has identified like the growth of tangy and sour foods; dishes McCormick calls “thoughtfully borrowed,” which are modernized versions of regional foods, and “new-stalgic” foods that are over-the-top takes of childhood favorites (think: mozzarella sticks with caviar.)
“All of those trends that we saw this year, we see them projected through this one flavor,” she said.
Choosing tamarind was a 9-month process using McCormick’s team, which visits various countries from South Africa to China and even Poland, examines restaurant menus, interviews experts and uses data “to see what’s going on in these places,” Aviram said.
“We’re not inventing anything new,” she added, noting that tamarind has been around for thousands of years and has been a popular ingredient for a while on menus in Asia and Mexico.
(Excerpt) Read more at channel3000.com ...
But Mary Hartman said it doesn’t get the waxy yellow off the linoleum.
I love tamarinds. We get them at the Asian market near us.
LOL...I’m scanning down reading the left side of my screen and saw your “POLISH” by itself. I thought “Yum!” Pierogis flavored with Tamarind.
I’ve always looked down on fashion conscious things, especially something that moves as slowly as spice favorites. I got a brief introduction to how ridiculously fast styles can change about 45 years ago. I took a young lady out who happened to be an interior decorator. She told me that furniture fashions change so quickly that, when you order your new furniture and it’s delivered four months later, it’s out of fashion. So you can never catch up and have in-fashion furniture.
That was my one and only date with her.
Tamarind is delicious.
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