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The Revival of Pâté is a Welcome Trend for Caterers and Guests Alike

Pâté: The Catering Trend that is Making a Splash

Pâté: The Next Best Thing is Here

When it comes to catering trends, the phrase, “what goes around comes around,” is particularly meaningful and relevant. The culinary pendulum is in constant swing and what goes out of style one year is bound to become the trend of the moment a decade or two later. Wait long enough and tried-and-true buffet staples, like pâté, start showing up again at catered events, with a few twists and turns that make them a dish so right for our times. The classic French favorite, pâté, as well as various modern interpretations, are now a trendy item that can showcase a caterer’s skills.

What is Pâté?

Pâté (pronounced pah-TAY) is French for “pie,” but we tend to refer to anything that is ground into a spreadable topping for crackers, or molded into a terrine, as pâté. It is often served baked in a crust (en croûte) but it is easier to simply serve the pâté mounded in a decorative way, so that guests can easily partake.

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Open a Gourmet Popsicle Business to Keep Up with the Pop Trend

Gourmet Popsicles: A Trendy, Niche Food-Industry Opportunity

Opening a Gourmet Popsicle Business

For many of us, cooks and customers alike, popsicles hold a dear place in our hearts, evoking the summer days of childhood spent outdoors, listening for the distinctive melody of the ice cream truck and celebrating its arrival. The heat of the summer would be alleviated with a sweet, frozen treat on a stick, whether fruity and colorful, or creamy and chocolatey. On the strength of this memory – of popsicles gone by – the frozen treat is finding its way in an updated and dressed-up version. Gourmet popsicles are all the rage right now.

Popsicle Catering: A Niche Operation

While many caterers will supply their own cakes, cookies, pies and other baked desserts for their catered affairs, very few of them will also be able to prepare gourmet popsicles in bulk without seriously expanding their operation. Instead, caterers are outsourcing their popsicle order requests to entrepreneurs who have set up an operation devoted solely to gourmet popsicles, so that these orders – which are becoming more and more popular every day – can be accommodated.

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Use These Experiential Catering Ideas to Create a Memorable Event

Experiential Catering Can Transform an Event into Theater

Hop Aboard the Experiential Catering Train

In today’s modern world of catering, it’s a mad race to find the one (or two or three) original approaches that will put you ahead of the pack. In this age of constant change, it is less about the food and drink that you serve and more about latching onto the latest trends or – better yet – predicting what the next great trend will be. With that in mind, you should be keeping an eye on the steady rise of the experiential catering trend. Because, in addition to serving your guests the finest culinary options, you now have to incorporate them into an overall experience that will leave a lasting impression on everyone present.

The Experience is Everything

Driven by a sense of exploration, or perhaps a dire fear of missing out, Americans today are always on the lookout for new experiences. Restaurants are offering novel, fun and memorable meals through pop-up venues and entertainment-themed locales. At the same time, while restaurants are offering unique experiences through their food and beverage options, venues that typically place experience over food and drink, such as sporting events and music festivals, are upgrading their menus to complement the experience. In other words, the experiential dining trend is on the rise and caterers have to join the fray or be left behind.

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Learn How Caterers Can Benefit by Using Made-From-Scratch Condiments

Homemade Condiments: A Caterer’s Big Drawing Card

Homemade Condiments for the Trendy Caterer

As a caterer, you are always trying to set yourself apart from others in the industry with premium offerings that include the best ingredients. The goal is to differentiate your business from others with unique flavors and concepts that earn you a reputation for originality and quality. Offering homemade condiments is a way to give a specialized twist to common foods that people have in their refrigerators, giving an artisanal flare to old familiar flavors.

Homemade Condiments: Perfect for Caterers

While some home cooks may embrace the homemade trend, it’s still way easier for them to grab condiments off the supermarket shelf and store them for later use. Caterers, on the other hand, can whip up a batch of homemade condiments – to be used at a specific event – and not have to worry that it won’t last forever in the refrigerator. Store-bought condiments are loaded with sugar and chemicals, which make them long lasting but not the healthiest of items. Making your own condiments may seem to hark back to the middle of the last century but, creatively, they are a big step forward in this age of health-conscious menus that stress natural ingredients.

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How to Cater for Gluten-Free Customers

Advice for Catering for Your Gluten-Free Clients

Gluten-Free Catering Cuisines

Dining out in restaurants or eating at a catered affair can be a risky proposition for anyone who is restricted to a gluten-free diet. While many restaurants and caterers offer gluten-free options – along with other offerings that take into account various food intolerances and allergies – not all take the time to train staff about the dangers of food sensitivities and to ensure that those “free-from” items are also free from cross-contamination.

These days, however, given how many gluten-free products are available – including vegetables, meat, legumes, and flour alternatives, such as cornmeal and rice flour – chefs can offer menus that are entirely gluten free, making life for a caterer whose client has gluten-free demands much easier. Caterers can offer a wide range of gluten-free cuisines, many of which we’ll discuss here, such as Mexican, Thai, and Indian.

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Discover the Health Values and History of Familiar Mustard

Mustard: A Healthful and Flavorful Condiment

Mustard: Possibly the Greatest Condiment of Them All

Mustard may have come alive for Americans in the early 20th century, when it was first coupled with the hot dog, but its history is longer and spicier than you might have imagined. The mustard plant, a member of the Brassica family, has tiny round seeds and tasty leaves, and the condiment mustard is made from the seeds of this plant. Its English name, mustard, is derived from the Latin words, mustum ardens, which mean “burning must.” This is a reference to the spicy heat of the crushed mustard seeds and the old French practice of mixing the plant’s ground seeds with “must,” the unfermented juice of wine grapes.

Mustard Facts and Stats

To keep things straight, mustard is technically the plant, while prepared mustard refers to the condiment. (In most cases, though, when people say “mustard,” everyone knows they’re referring to the condiment.) The seeds aren’t flavorful until they are cracked, after which they are mixed with a liquid to become prepared mustard.

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How to Eliminate Food Waste in the Commercial Kitchen

Tips for Reducing Food Waste in the Food-Service Business

How to Minimize Food Waste in Commercial Kitchens

Food waste has long been an unfortunate byproduct of commercial kitchens – including both restaurant and catering kitchens. According to the Food Waste Reduction Alliance (FWRA), every year, roughly 40 million tons of wasted food is sent to landfills in the United States. At the same time, record numbers of Americans – about one in six – are receiving government food assistance. In the United States, organizations like the FWRA are taking on the challenges of food waste with the dual goal of shrinking our environmental footprint and addressing hunger in America. So, what can you do to reduce waste in your commercial kitchen? Read on.

What is Food Waste?

The sources of food waste are varied and many. Food waste is generated by consumers and the food-service industry (restaurants and catering companies, for instance), but it can also be a byproduct of manufacturing operations. Food waste is food that can be used again but that is instead sent to landfills. This food is thrown out because it looks weird and inedible; it was not eaten during a meal; or, it is unused and beginning to rot. Food waste amounts to the equivalent of about 20 pounds of wasted food per person per month in the U.S.; and in monetary terms, that’s about $1,000 of food waste per year per four-person family.

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Learn About the Hottest Wedding Food Trends of 2018

Keep on Top of Wedding Food Trends to Stay Current

Wedding Food Trends for 2018

With 2017 drawing to a close and 2018 upon us, it’s time to explore the upcoming trends in wedding food. Successful caterers and event planners have to be at least one step ahead of the crowd when it comes to trends since before you know it, the next best thing will become the trend that everybody must have. The last thing you want is to be left behind when it comes to keeping up with the latest wedding culinary ideas and innovations.

Weddings Are Multi-Faceted Events

Wedding trends cover all the elements of a special event – from décor to flowers to attire; but, as a caterer you want to focus on food trends because that’s what affects your business. Food trends cover the entire meal – from hors d’oeuvres for the reception, to drinks at the bar… onto the main meal and, of course, the dessert buffet. Wedding food trends tend to sweep the industry like a brushfire, and only those who don’t have their fingers on the pulse will get caught unawares.

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Why the Right Chafing Dish is Essential to Every Catered Buffet

Quality Chafing Dishes: A Must for All Caterers

All About Chafing Dishes

A chafing dish (from the French word, chauffer, which means “to make warm”) is a portable and essential piece of equipment in the food industry. For catering businesses, the chafing dish is the foundation of any food presentation. They are also essential in restaurants that specialize in buffets with hot dishes. Chafing dishes (a.k.a. chafers) are made to keep food warm – from two to six hours – and they are the most affordable and convenient way to heat your delicious buffet items.

What is a Chafing Dish?

A chafing dish is a multi-layered apparatus: it uses chafing fuel to heat a large, shallow pan of water, which in turn heats a pan of food above it. The food in the pan stays hot, and the indirect heat, along with the water, keeps it from scorching or drying out. Electric chafers and induction chafers are other types of chafing dishes that don’t use fuel, but still use water as a medium to transfer heat, and are great for permanent buffets (like in restaurants).

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