Courtesy of the United States Potato Board

A recent study confirms that potatoes do not contribute to weight gain.

Pressure from legislators and consumers is growing for restaurant operators to place nutrition information on their menus. At the same time, while everyone is talking about healthier eating, they still want flavor. This pressure to create culinary delights that please the label as well as the palate makes the job of the foodservice professional far more challenging.

Fortunately, there are foundational foods, such as potatoes, that consumers love and associate with comfort and great taste. And when prepared healthfully, they maintain a low-calorie, low-fat, nutrient-dense profile. In fact, research recently released by the University of California, Davis, and the National Center for Food Safety and Technology, Illinois Institute of Technology, demonstrated people can include potatoes in their diet and still lose weight.

By Renee Zonka, RD, CEC, CHE, MBA

Just when we finally had our mouths wrapped around the fifth taste sense of umami, a newly discovered sixth taste, kokumi, emerges. How will this affect our teaching of flavor development?

After several years, umami has been firmly acknowledged as the fifth flavor profile, joining salt, sweet, sour and bitter. It has been described as the overall sensation of “savory meatiness” and is present in foods high in glutamic acid or the once-forbidden monosodium glutamate (MSG).

By Brian Campbell, CEC, CCE

Restaurants need students who can not only create and reproduce quality independent sauces (cold and hot), but also know how to use them properly.

I have taught several different classes over the years: Classical French, International, Stocks and Sauces, Traditional European, New World (Cuisine of the Americas) and, most recently, Garde Manger. It is in the latter that I have found myself settling for an extended stay. At our school, Garde Manger is a sophomore-level class that, more often than not, follows an externship in the industry that lasts a full term (about 12 weeks). I mention this only to put into perspective the experience level of the students when they enter my class. They have a year of freshman-level skill-based classes and at least some work experience (externship) that ideally placed them in a full rotation in the kitchen where they were able to put these skills into practice.

Courtesy of FoodChannel.com

Pie, sausage, nutmeg and moonshine top the list.

In the food business, everyone’s looking for the “next” this, or the “new” that. Here are the foods and flavors we see making noise in the new year.

1. Small Pies. Pie, of course, has been around forever, but 2011 could be the Year of the Pie. Some are already calling it the “next cupcake.” We say, yes, pies will be hot in the coming year, but look for smaller pies to make it big—in both sweet and savory varieties.

Korean tacos, Southern comfort and “frugality fatigue” are among the leading restaurant trends predicted by Technomic for next year.

As the nation begins to emerge from recession, restaurants are seeing lapsed customers return. Same-store sales are inching up, signaling the industry’s initial rebound to health; hiring is also up, signaling positive expectations for 2011. But this isn’t the same restaurant industry as before. Big changes are on the way—on menus, in concept development and in the competitive landscape.

Technomic, the leading foodservice research and consulting firm, examines the future for restaurants through the lens of 40-plus years tracking the industry, and sees 11 top trends emerging in 2011: