It’s been a strange and often disturbing few years in the Brooklyn food scene. We’ve seen Nutelasagna, cricket bitters, chorizo ice cream and pig-foot pancakes and, frankly, things are just gonna keep getting weirder.
While other publications speculate about this year, we here at Brokelyn are already getting a head start on 2017. After months of research, crystal-gazing and blind-guessing, our in-house R&D team/time scientists bring you our 10 best predictions for what you’ll be eating in 2017 (we hope you like horse).
Next-level ramen
Over the last couple of years we’ve seen ramen go from dorm-room-last-resort to It Food, but in 2017 things get extreme. First the ramen burger makes way for the “burger ramen” (a deep fried ramen patty sandwiched between two slabs of beef), and then there will be ramen pizza (both pizza where the dough is ramen and a bowl of ramen filled with pepperoni), ramen’d butter, ramen cream pie, and finally ramen ramen, which is a bowl of ramen but instead of broth, vegetables and meat, it’s just more ramen.
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Space-meat burgers
One small step for man, one giant leap for the BK food scene. When humans land on Mars in early 2017, it’s only a matter of time until space meat burgers (burgers made of space meat) start showing up at Reynard, Five Leaves and then eventually go mainstream (thanks, Space Shake Shack). Sure, it might not be “PC” to consume the innards of the native, colonized Martian race but, then again, foie gras is still a thing.
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Beereal
Mark our words, 2017 is the year Brooklyn tears down the final taboo: using beer instead of milk in your cereal. After the New York Times discovers CereAle, a hole-in-the-wall Bud-and-cornflakes dive bar in Sunset Park, the trend catches fire in the brunch scene. Soon, Sweet Chick rebrands itself as “BeReal” and starts serving craft beer and Puffins.
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All-drone Seamless
Following Amazon’s lead, Seamless and GrubHub will move to an all-drone model by early 2017. In lieu of phone calls from your delivery guy, expect a siren and swell of red light at your window. Don’t forget to tip or your drone may convert your burrito into fuel for the coming war between man and machine. You’ll still probably get run over by a drone carrying Chinese food speeding down a sidewalk though.
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Corn Mush
We’re predicting a big comeback for this depression-era classic as the world economy crumbles once again. Try corn mush with milk for breakfast and fried corn mush for dinner. Add a pinch of tobacco to your mush to stave off mumps!
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Arby’s
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Donuts that don’t taste good
We’ve seen donuts come in and out of style — the standard American donut, the classic French take, the cronut, the vegan “donut.” And sure, any old bakery can make a good donut, but 2017 should be the year food gets challenging. Enter the donut that nobody enjoys. Inspired by Nathan for You’s poop-flavored yogurt, Dough makes a novelty “burnt” flavor that soon becomes its most popular as Brooklynites compete to claim enjoyment of the “understated,” “mature,” “pallet-testing” dessert.
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Horse
When Ikea’s Red Hook location becomes its latest to be accused of serving horsemeat, the scandal turns into its greatest asset. Adventurous eaters brave the half-hour walk for a plate of meatballs just for the bragging rights. Catching on, the Swedes start charging double for the “exotic” flavor and soon half the bars in Brooklyn add “horseballs” to their late-night menus.
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All Soylent Everything
After making waves in 2015, Soylent introduces Soylent Green, its mysterious new “miracle food” that everyone assumes is just flavored with kale, because everything is. It quickly becomes THE hot supplement of 2017. Some food ethicists are skeptical but the company assures everyone its sources for soylent are humanely raised and everyone figures it’s fine.
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Troughs
Like a bowl but for several pigs. Our money’s on Roberta’s to lead the pack by introducing its first pizza trough — a ten-foot-wide well of cheese, bread and tomato sauce. Soon, the new family-style will take America by storm, with knock-off troughs appearing in every Olive Garden in the country by late December. Celebs will line up in Bushwick just to get their faces in that trendy Roberta’s trough.
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We’ll have to wait till 2017 to find out for sure, but one thing is already clear: The future of food is wild, limitless and terrifying.
Did we miss anything? Let us know in the comments (starting January 2018)!
Follow Sam into the future: @SamHWeiss.