Apparently, San Francisco is the top food destination in the world. Sort of.
According to the “first ever Culinary Travel Trend Report” released by Travelocity.ca, San Francisco is the number one city where “food artisans and chefs start some of the biggest food trends.” Here’s the full top 10 list, complete with “trends to watch” from each destination:
1. San Francisco, USA - Sriracha sauce
2. New York, USA - gourmet burgers
3. San Sebastian, Spain - foraging
4. Toronto, Canada - hand-held pies
5. Lyon, France - heritage cuisine
6. Seattle, USA - salted caramels
7. New Orleans, USA - craft cocktails
8. Vancouver, Canada - sustainable seafood
9. Stockholm, Sweden - artisanal and gourmet salts
10. Tuscany, Italy - roasted chicken
Don’t get me wrong. I love seeing San Francisco at the top of all kinds of lists (save that most expensive place to live ever), but this one, courtesy of “global food trendologist” Christine Couvelier, is all kinds of messed up. First of all, the North America/Western Europe dominance of this list is narrow-minded, ignorant, and straight up incorrect. There are no Asian countries represented. Not one!! You can’t spend five minutes with a food minded traveler without dreams of Thailand, obsessions with Japan, or aspirations towards Malaysia coming up. And that’s just scratching the surface. What about the rich food culture of India? The regional intricacies of Turkey? Or, um, Mexico, the place where food dreams are made of?!
Second, this reasoning is … bizarre. San Francisco has all kinds of amazing things going on in its food culture, much of which is trend-setting. But uh, Sriracha? That’s what makes us stand out? Not our farm-fresh produce, groundbreaking chefs, and incomparably good sourdough bread? I mean, if anything, it should be based on something produced here (we are all about our local makers), and the big Sriracha factory is based in Irwindale, CA. Pigeonholing San Francisco to hot sauce (for which, incidentally, we have Southeast Asia to thank), New York to burgers, and Tuscany to roast chicken (!) further proves that this list is straight up strange.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I think I’ll go eat a Sriracha-doused gourmet burger, washed down with a craft cocktail, while I plot my next eating adventure far, far away from this top 10.
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