When a food trend hits the point of no return

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Whether it's in a cocktail, a cake pop, or in latte form, pistachio is officially everywhere. | Getty

Welcome to Eater’s Weekend Special, an inside look at what our staff was buzzing about this week

Pistachio is officially everywhere. As Amy McCarthy recently wrote, the nut is popping up in cocktails, the new Dole Whip at Disney World, and even a “cult classic” perfume. In paste form, it’s in a viral TikTok from Bon Appétit; in milk form, it’s very aesthetic. As a flavor consultant told Salon, this mainstreaming is happening because pistachio is “one of those flavors that’s ‘new’ to specific categories, but still familiar to the public’s palate,” so as a result, we see all these brands “using the flavor in new applications, especially lattes and cocktails.” Of course, it’s happening now because we are also churning through new flavors like never before — case in point: Coke’s new “transformation-flavored” soda.

This should have been pretty easy to call. After all, Starbucks began playing around with a pistachio latte in 2019, and if there’s anything Starbucks is, its labor issues notwithstanding, it’s a tastemaker. When an ingredient or format gets onto the menu there, it’s bound to be everywhere. From cake pops to pumpkin spice to sous vide egg bites, “there is perhaps no better bellwether of trends than Starbucks,” Jaya Saxena pointed out.

Saxena was noting that because of Starbucks’s newest play: its Oleato line of olive oil coffee, which it has rolled out in Italy and will expand globally this year. This involves olive oil “being steamed, shaken, or blended into both the Oleato drinks.” Olive oil has always been in, but there’s been a recent surge in interest. The rise of Graza, with its neon-green tipped squeeze bottles, turned olive oil into a very specific Food TikTok status item. While Graza’s generous use of olive oil in cocktails and on ice cream can be polarizing online, Starbucks’s adoption of sippable olive oil is like a final seal of social approval: Starbucks serves it, and people will drink it.

Another sign that a food trend has really made it? When it becomes airplane food, as the Washington Post reported on this week. Because passengers bring their expectations from the ground to their flight experiences, the food on planes is also changing to reflect those trends: more plant-based meals, more transparent sourcing on menus, even increased use of fermentation, the Post explained. Airline chef Molly Brandt mentioned getting inspiration from TikTok and playing around with koji while developing new on-flight dishes. What’s going to be this decade’s version of sun-dried tomatoes or bacon-covered everything? We’ll just have to look to Starbucks, and to the skies. — Bettina Makalintal

Your weekend reading:

• This week, we published Eater’s Mall Food Madness package, an Auntie Anne’s-scented deep dive into *Tom DeLonge voice* all the mall things. It’s got dumpling drama between two of LA’s biggest malls, a dispatch from mall food courts around the country, and so much more.
• According to Taste, it’s time for justice for jarred pasta sauce.
• Menu trendspotting: Chicken liver mousse in Philly! Animal skin, all over! A ranch pizza revival in NYC? We can only hope!
• In the New York Times, Kim Severson wrote a moving feature on Raghavan Iyer, the influential author whose newest book, On the Curry Trail: Chasing the Flavor That Seduced the World in 50 Recipes, will be his last. 

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