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Time travel and comfort food: Flavor memories get unlocked through ‘newstalgia’ Elior North America Chief Culinary Officer Chris Aquilino shares his take on why diners suddenly feel the urge to travel back in time, and how Elior is building that time machine for its guests.
food. One of my favorites right now is Hot Cheetos on hot wings, that texture over something we’re all used to makes it such a different eating experience. Dirty sodas are a modern version of a classic fountain beverage, and hot dogs are having a huge moment. They’re inexpensive, you can dress them up, and they have emotional familiarity. HOW DO YOU WORK NEWSTALGIA INTO OTHER UNEXPECTED FOOD SERVICE SEGMENTS? We’re looking at bringing newstalgia into the correction officer’s dining rooms. I hold a place for them to kind of take a break, get a meal and have that pause from everything else going on. WHAT ADVICE WOULD YOU GIVE TO CHEFS WHO WANT TO INFUSE NEWSTALGIA ON THEIR MENUS? I would start with a place in time where you can connect back to a flavor memory. Start messing around with dishes that are your favorites, and throw in an unexpected twist. My brain always goes to Saturday morning cartoons because that was a big part of growing up for me. How do you do something like a cereal- crusted piece of protein? It’s a fun place to leap from, but it also has to taste good and have balance. It can’t just be flavors that will beat you over the head and not work together. There is a bit of this that’s kind of like, hey that’s clever, I’d never eat it but that’s clever. You have to find that balance but also that perfect cross-section of what people are into in the periphery and bring them together. WHAT DISHES DO YOU THINK SHOULD JUST NOT BE MESSED WITH? That’s a hard one. I think it’s all open for interpretation, quite frankly. Again it’s about balance. You can’t go so far away from the original dish that it’s unrecognizable. Maybe something like a coq au vin, which is really hard to mess with, and the idea of braising the chicken in celery root is something I’ve done in the past.
BY LIZ GROSSMAN
A t Chicago’s Void restau- rant, the spaghetti uh-o’s come in a can but are com- prised of anelli Siciliani pasta, delicious house- made meatballs, and vodka sauce, a deli- cious example of newstalgia in food, the trend of reviving retro or iconic dishes and drinks but updating them with a fun, modern, or elevated twist. “It’s about longing for good memories and com- fort,” says Elior North America Chief Culinary Officer Chris Aquilino. “Being able to build an experience where there are sharable moments is a fun way to satisfy a craving.” We talked to Aquilino about how to work nods of newstalgia into any menu, why the trend is taking off, and the retro flavor mashup he’s still working on. WHY IS NEWSTALGIA SO BIG NOW? Food is where everybody comes together around the table to celebrate something or someone and it breaks down walls. It’s a people connector, and the newstalgia trend is leading that. It’s about the enjoyment of connecting to a piece of yourself from the past or evoking an experience or emotion, which is so important right now with
everything going on in the world. It’s about giving someone an experience that lets them have 20 or 30 minutes of peace with something that may be familiar or evokes a flavor memory. Why would we not want to have fun retro flavor combinations that play on meaningful moments in our lives? WHAT MOMENTS OR MEMORIES HAVE INSPIRED YOUR FAVORITE RETRO FLAVORS? I collaborated on a private ’80s-themed dinner where we had music, videos, and arcade games. We did things like pop rocks and tiramisu, which was really fun. E.T was big for me growing up, so of course Reese’s Pieces were part of the dessert. It was great R&D to try something like out for a small group, and then decide how it can explode into a national menu. WHAT ARE SOME OTHER EXAMPLES OF NEWSTALGIA? It can be more elevated to something as simple as hot honey on pepperoni pizza. Or truffle chicken pot pie, Indian spiced pot pie, meatball Wellington, or gourmet grilled cheese. We’re seeing loaded tater tots, and things like kimchi-loaded fries, and I’m seeing snack items paired with
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