Food Fashions

We’ve seen food fashions come and go but we have always been ahead of the trends.

In the past five years, posh burger bars seem to have taken over the high streets, we luckily have always prided ourselves on our homemade burgers, whether it’s beef & chilli, lamb & coriander or chicken & guacamole, a new one is in production.

People nowadays are not only more food aware, with cookery programmes on every channel, they are also more into the healthy options and they want it to be tasty. Our customers are much more likely to choose an alternative to potato and love to try all the new and exciting grains, beans and pulses that are now readily available, a long way from boiled rice, which was once deemed exotic.

Vegetarian dishes are not exclusive any more, and thank goodness, the cheese and pasta frozen bake is well in the past. We normally have at least three choices on our specials board and these can change daily. Not all of these are ordered by a veggie, we have some ‘proper’ meat eaters that opt for one of these dishes from time to time.

With the fact that even the local veg shops are stocking a more varied and exciting selection, the idea of whipping a new vegetarian dish up is no longer boring, added to that the abundance of fresh herbs and spices we can get hold of, the sky’s the limit!

With recipes now just a click away, a whole virtual world has opened-up to the enthusiastic foodie, for those that haven’t the time or inclination, there’s somewhere not too far away to feed mind, body and soul.

The thing with a food trend is that you might make a friend for life, if not wait and see what’s on the menu next, or in the Sunday supplement or on your next favourite cookery show, they’ll show you the way.

We at The Swan have always tried to stick to our ethos of sourcing as much local produce as possible and using what is in season. So, with much talk of food miles over past years, we were already in the right place, to us it always seemed simple and really couldn’t work out what the fuss was about. The fact that if it’s not travelling hundreds of miles and is homegrown on your doorstep, surely means that its fresher and not going to cost you an arm and a leg?