Beware: a pand(an)emic comes this way
THANKS to the goddess herself, Nigella Lawson, pandan is about to start popping up a whole lot more, writes Kerry Parnell.
Rendezview
Don't miss out on the headlines from Rendezview. Followed categories will be added to My News.
KEEP your pandan on, there’s a new food trend coming.
Forget almond milk and moon dust, the hot new ingredient is pandan. It’s enough to make you spit out your matcha tea.
We know this, because Nigella Lawson pronounced it to be true, and she’s the Domestic Goddess, so she must receive her information from on high. We can now expect everything from chicken to ice-cream to be flavoured with this South East Asian plant.
Actually, it’s not such big news to Australians — and South East Asians of course — as it’s used in Thai and Malaysian cooking all the time and we’ve been happily munching on pandan for years. It’s particularly good in desserts — although it turns everything a distinctive green colour.
However, it’s become the latest ‘It’ ingredient in America, which means we can expect a pandan-emic in our cafes and restaurants too.
“Due to the large South East Asian population in Australia, diners are already familiar with pandan,” says News Corp food writer Renata Gortan. “But chefs are now using it in non-traditional ways. You can get a pandan crème brulee at Green Peppercorn in Sydney’s Fairfield and pandan pancakes in Blaq Piq in the CBD.”
And Doughlish offers that peculiar American dessert, cookie dough with pandan, at their pop-up in Parramatta.
And so the greenwash begins, where our favourite snacks get ruined by the latest fad. All we can do is look forward to 2019 when pandan will be as passe as pesto (I’m so old I can remember when it first became a “thing”).
It joins a long list of other annoying food trends I’d like to see the back of:
Brioche buns: Why does every burger have to come in a calorie-laden sweet roll? You may as well sprinkle sugar on it.
Turmeric lattes: The big fad of last year, turmeric is undeniably good for you, packed with antioxidants, but a yellow curry beverage is not coffee. And let’s not even go near the blue algae lattes being quaffed by hipsters.
Moon dust: Blame Gwyneth Paltrow for this, but the wellness brigade love to add a dash of dried superfoods into their green smoothies. You can buy sachets to enhance your spirit, beauty, power and dreams. Quite.
Chia seeds: Need to aid your digestion? Sprinkle some chia seeds in your porridge. Need to lose all your friends because you have little black dots stuck in your teeth? Sprinkle some more.
Kale: It might be a superfood, but it tastes like eating weeds that you’ve cooked under your armpits.
Sharing plates: Tapas is lovely. Sharing your meal in a posh restaurant is not. All it means is you have to eat pork belly when you hate it, and watch your vegetarian choice get demolished by your fellow diners. Give us back our plates!
Cronuts: Doughnuts are delicious, so are croissants. The Frankenstein’s food monster that is the cronut is not.
Aioli: What happened to ketchup? Or mayonnaise? I’m with Dave Hughes on this, who recently moaned about cafes serving that dribbly condiment with his kids’ chips.
Pea milk: Still drinking almond milk? That’s so last season. Now the latest dairy-free milk is made from peas. It contains more calcium than normal milk and more protein than almond milk. But it’s still disgusting in tea.
Join the conversation via the RendezView Facebook page and Twitter page.