What if you say “Aguamenti” like Harry Potter, and you see the virtual world’s most famous foods in front of your eyes! From the hybridization of animals, now scrutiny drifted towards the hybridization of foods, and as a result, creation is Novelty. We are presenting some fantastic, mouthwatering combos that are the social media craze these days.
Were these food items really worth the fuss, or were they just for the ‘gram? From rainbow bagels to ramen burgers, from Unicorn Frappuccino’s to Dalgona shakes, here are some of the novelty foods that filled your social feed in recent years. Building mix and match desserts can be fun combining things like fudge, popcorn, Fruit Loops, M&M’s, even doughnuts and cheesecake slices.
1) Cronut
Cronuts are one out of the 25 most famous foods of 2013. When you add croissants with doughnuts, foodies go nuts, and their sadness is shut! The favorite social media food originated from a bakery, Dominique Ansel, New York. The notion is to do hybridization between a Croissant and a Doughnut, and the result is today’s viral dessert, Cronuts!
An interesting fact about the cronuts is that it took Ansel three months, and during that period, he made more than ten tweaks to make the perfect cronuts, which are viral today!
2) Rainbow bagel
One of the foods that best typifies dining in the Instagram and social media age is the rainbow bagel. This technicolor bread was the creation of The Bagel Store in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, who started selling them in 2015.
While they taste like regular bagels, the rainbow bagel nevertheless attracted the attention of many people, many of whom traveling from across the country just to get one. Demand was so overwhelming that the store was forced to close temporarily in 2016.
3) Dalgona coffee
When the Covid-19 pandemic began sweeping the world in 2020, we found ourselves spending longer time in our kitchens than we could have imagined. For the time being, we gave up regular visits to our favorite cafés, so the Dalgona coffee became the substitute for our coffee-shop fix. This foamy concoction of instant coffee, milk, and sugar is actually quite easy to prepare, you don’t even need an electronic hand mixer to make it.
4) Over-the-top milkshake (crazy milkshake or freakshake)
In the mid-2010s, restaurants and cafés started adding every sweet treat they could find to their milkshakes. Although the over-the-top milkshake trend started at a café in Canberra, Australia, in 2015, it wasn’t until a burger joint in New York City popularized it a year later. You can add and top everything to your milkshake with whatever your heart desires – fudge, popcorn, Fruit Loops, M&M’s, even doughnuts and cake slices.
5) Ramen Burger
After the Japan-American Confrontation in 1945, the next happening where both the countries show togetherness is the intervention of Ramen Burger. The combo of Japan’s famous Ramen and America’s Burger resulted in the gram’s sensation, “Ramen Burger”. The mastermind who unleashed this heavenly delicious intervention is Keizo Shimamoto, a Japanese-American Chef. It was first introduced in a petite food market in Brooklyn, New York, in 2013.
The idea is to make a burger look attractive and appetizing by making the buns out of ramen noodles. Interestingly, the ramen burger is that though this notion was subtle and straightforward, it was still stolen, and the robbers were a local food chain, Red Robin. Then the case was solved, and at last, Mr. Shimamoto won the title of the owner of the Ramen burger.
6) Raindrop cake
Once again on the Japanese novelty food – this curious-looking cake, indeed resembling a raindrop, was first invented by Kinseiken Seika Company in Yamanashi Prefecture (near Tokyo), Japan, in 2014. Originally named mizu shingen mochi, or “water droplet cake,” this gelatinous, transparent dessert consists of water, sugar, and agar, and shaped into a clear, giant dewdrop. It is normally served with kuromitsu (a molasses-like syrup) and kinako (soybean flour).
7) Pancake cereal
Instagram was the melting pot (pardon the pun) of the biggest viral food trends from the past decade. Then, 2020 ushered in the TikTok era. One of the viral trends that TikTok launched last year was the pancake cereal, consisting of tiny pancakes soaked in milk and eaten just the way that regular breakfast cereal in milk is eaten.
8) Cloud bread
One of the food trends that went viral on the TikTok platform during the Covid-19 lockdown period is the cloud bread. Not only it is a viral thing on social media – it is actually delicious. It’s fluffy and tasty just like your favorite sourdough, but with significantly less carbs. All you need to bake it at home are egg whites, corn starch, and sugar. The ingredients come together to form a light and fluffy cloud-like bread. It’s like you’re taking a bite of a piece of heaven.
9) Unicorn Frappuccino
Starbucks is a name that does not need any introduction. Starbucks is a brand in itself. Starbucks is a brand that is infamous for unleashing marketing strategies that stand out in the crowd. Unicorn Frappuccino is a limited edition by Starbucks. It is a beautiful mixture of some unicorn-colored syrups with a very miraculous and wizardry Pink Pearl Dust at the top of the whipped cream!
The exciting fact about Frappuccino is that Starbucks bought the store that first introduced Frappuccino, and now Starbucks is the only coffee chain that has Frappuccino’s; others might have it with some variations.
10) Charcoal ice cream and froyo
For people who could not stomach colorful food, there was the charcoal craze. Morgenstern’s Finest Ice Cream in New York City is widely believed to have started this trend by selling pitch-black ice cream made of activated charcoal in 2015. Activated charcoal is purported to have health benefits, such as anti-oxidant and anti-inflammatory properties. Whether activated charcoal’s health benefits are real or just a marketing gimmick, that won’t stop people from buying charcoal ice cream and froyo and praising their rich, Instagram-worthy blackness.
11) Doritos Locos Tacos
This mouthwatering feast popped up at taco family in 2012 by Taco Bells. The innovation was out of the box, as it combined favorite Taco-junk with Tortilla and Doritos, which unsurprisingly is a surprise for foodies out there! The ultimate Doritos shelling with tacos filling in two luscious flavors, Cool Ranch and Nacho Cheese, gives your taste buds a thrill.
Novelty Foods – Give Yourself A Feast
With every single tick-tock at the clock, another new viral thing is at your dock! Be it food, clothes, makeup or fashion, everything is being digitalized and globalized with passing the time. The urge to create new and unique though sometimes bizarre, is increasing.
The most influential foods and the junk foods that have made a buzz in the social world proved that anything could be on Tiktok, Instagram and Facebook; if it has something out of the box and unusual facts hidden in it, as food industry is also at a tremendous competitive level.