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Food lovers, gourmands or simply people looking for an amazing experience in the fine art of cooking, will be astonished by what you can do today with passion, love and a lot of skills in the kitchen. Check here how fooding is one of the biggest trends of the century and how people share their passion for what thy cook. It is also the opportunity to discover 2 amazing Chefs-virtuosas who transform a perfect cake into magic. Meet M-elicious by Mélanie Müller and Sweet Heart by Sarah Willer. But before presenting the amazing work of these 2 food-artists, here is a little background on the Food trend. It will help understand today’s horizon and how the food industry is evolving. It is all about the sharing and at LuxuryActivist we say: “the more we share, the better”.

Food lovers and fooding is a major trend.

When you work on trends or futurology (frankly I hate this word but anyway), there are long term trends and short term “fashionable themes”. Fooding is definitely something deep and long-lasting in society. With the arrival of internet and more precisely Social Media, it is not a couple of good chefs you can find in town, there are millions of them you can find just by google it. Every one can become a famous chef just by sharing your work. Of course you bet being talented otherwise it will not be of any good.

What is interesting with Food is that it reflects completely the evolution of society and also it is a brilliant way of self-expression and transmission. A sort of common cultural heritage that contributes to the feeling of belonging to a family, a city, a country or to the human species. Culinary tradition was something that we would transmit from mother or father to son or daughter. Every generation would get the heritage of the family and in our case, cooking is one of them. Families have secret recipes or traditions respected by each generation.

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Nevertheless, the 70’s and the 80’s saw the change of many social institutions. Marriage, family, army, politics or religion are not any more the foundation of your own identity. So the heritage and the transmission is something that you need to find somewhere else. And this is where Internet plays a role. Transmission and heritage is not anymore 2 exclusive concepts within your private family circle. You can have these from anyone in the world by engaging with them via internet and social media. And when we know that in 2014 there will be more content produced and published for internet than in the entire human history, we can see that people have a strong need for sharing. Sharing is definitely part of our humanity and transmission is a strong feeling and need. So Social media somehow is just a reflection of our human status. And in our case here, food is a super huge topic.

Social Media is a shockwave

With the arrival of social networks like Instagram, Vine, Pinterest and of course Facebook and Twitter, the food industry need to review completely the way they communicate. Not only because people wishes to communicate with them via social media, but because potentially anyone can communicate about food! The evolution of internet showed that texts were replaced by images and images are now being replaced by videos. That’s the way of things. Fooding is a big trend. We know that. Never in modern history people spent so much money in their interior at home and in their kitchen. Cooking is one of the most popular hobbies. People enjoy taking the time to cooking, alone or with friends. And of course, when you  successfully baked or cooked the perfect meal you want to tell that to the world right? So you post it on Social media. A picture or video on Instagram, a mention on Twitter or even a full review with the recipe on your blog.

A recent study made by the Hartman Group reveals how our food habits are chancing thanks to Social media. You can discover new things easier and faster. You can engage with people that you would never meet and you can even participate in projects related to food that you would never do without the social networks. While asking questions to food lovers, some interesting answers came on the study. 82% of people, interesting in food as a topic, visit social network sites monthly. 49% of them declared to learn regularly about food via social networking. More interesting, 32% of people in the study have either texted or used a social networking site/app in the last month while eating and drinking. You can see the study here if you wish to learn more.

Facebook is for sure a great way to connect to people but it is true that Instagram and Pinterest really brought the food experience to another level.

Instagram and #FoodPorn

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Because 1 person out of 3 takes a picture and share it while eating and drinking, the food topic became quite popular in social networks like Instagram. It is easy to do it as today’s smartphones are more than capable to help you getting a decent picture from your sandwich or pasta or own amazing recipe. By doing this, you become what we call a “content producer”. And the ultimate aim of a content producer is for his content to be found! And for that, social media gods invented the Hashtag ! By tagging correctly your content you can be found easily in the social networks and even you can be part of a trend! Probably the most popular hashtag of all for food is #foodporn. The word itself was Invented by the Center of Science In Public Interest in Washington DC. Now it became a mega-trend in social media and you have even a websites for it.

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The idea of food porn is to translate the idea of a picture in which we see a big closeup on a meal or food. It is aesthetics and reflects a submission of a meal to the eyes of everyone who wishes to see it. So there is a kind of relation with the approach of classic porn in which we see more or less the same approach of closeup and submission but of course with naked people :-).

So every day, new trends are bursting your screen and we see more and more people sharing their own recipes. From tapas ideas to thanksgiving alternatives towards amazing desserts you would dream to cook and to eat… the internet is an amazing creative field. After Cupcakes and other Cronuts, now the hot topic of the moment is baking amazing birthday cakes with marzipan decoration. And despite the fact it sounds simple, some people out there are true artists and food-virtuosos. Another interesting fact is that Birthdays are more and more celebrated as part of your social connection. It is a privilege moment for you with your friends and family. So people also give more and more importance to birthdays and birthday’s cakes. So to illustrate these trends we are honored to present 2 amazing food-artists: Melanie Müller from Switzerland and Sarah Willer from France.

M-elicious by Melanie Müller

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Meet Melanie Müller. She is Swiss, born in Schwyz, one of the founder-cantons of Switzerland. She has a passion for gastronomy and especially cakes. She tells about herself melanie-mueller-melicious-kuchenthat her passion about cakes came from her travels. Everywhere she would go she encountered different types of cakes and desserts. So her passion for cakes started to become bigger and bigger and now she is sharing her passion not only with close friends and relations but online too. And that is what her website is about. You can see most of the cakes she creates and her specialty is definitely the Marzipan Birthday cake. As a sculptor and alchemist, she will transform the raw material into shapes, colors, formats and patterns in order to make your dream of the perfect cake come true. Being Swiss, you can imagine that the quality and the sense of perfect details are part of her philosophy. A true Swiss-made cake. She is getting more and more popular in Switzerland as she got several articles in the swiss-german press. She usually has her close network of people so she can already start her business there. She works also for one of the most reputed Hotel-Restaurants in Central Switzerland called Wysses Rössli in Schwyz, which makes her definitely in the gastronomy business. She also create cakes for companies, one of her latest creations was a fragrance flacon for Victorinox Swiss Army Fragrances. The cake was to celebrate the birthday of the Victorinox division CEO. So here are a short selection of amazing cakes made by Melanie Müller. Some of them are truly sculptures.

Marzipan-Birthday-Cake-Melanie-Mueller-gameboy Marzipan-Birthday-Cake-Melanie-Mueller-gothicDoll

m-elicious-melanie-mueller-cake-bees m-elicious-melanie-mueller-cake Marzipan-Birthday-Cake-Melanie-Mueller-Victorinox

So, if you wish to know more about Melanie Müller’s work, you can see her website here:
http://www.melicious.ch. Please note that the website is in German only but if you have any requests, you can contact Melanie Müller also in english.

Sweetheart by Sarah Willer

Sweetheart-by-Sarah-Willer

Putting a smile on people’s faces is what motivates the most Sarah Willer when she is cooking something. She is french, living in Paris in France – the country for gastronomy and luxury cuisine. Food is not only about eating, it is also about sharing a pleasant Sarah-Willer-SweetHeartmoment with someone we like, or to surprise your friends and family with something you cooked. It is like taking care of them. Sarah Willer is a very passionate person. She loves to share her passion and knowledge and she is also a very talented food-artist. Today she shares a lot of recipes and pictures on her website but also in Instagram and Facebook. Her website is like her personality. She is friend, generous and will do everything in her power to offer a great moment of gastronomy sharing! The way she presents her creations is stylish, modern, very new york style and still plenty with humour. You definitely need to follow her on social media in order to keep tracking of everything she is doing. She also proposes workshops for kids, so children can discover the “magic” of food recipes. One of her specialties is the Birthday cakes! She has a dedicated area in her website about it and from sparkling princesses to action heroes, everybody would be happy with such amazing cakes. She completely influences the choice of the cake style by understanding what would please the most the person whose birthday is to be celebrated. Here below a short selection of her work.

Marzipan-Birthday-Cake-SweetHeart-by-Sarah-Willer-batman Marzipan-Birthday-Cake-SweetHeart-by-Sarah-Willer-montre Marzipan-Birthday-Cake-SweetHeart-by-Sarah-Willer-princess

To discover more about Sarah’s work you can connect to her website here:
http://sweetheartbysarah.com. Please note that the information is in french. Or you can also connect with her via social media and follow weekly all the recipes.

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Food is a very inspiring topic and as we can see it inspires millions of people every day. So you should probably get also inspired as we never know. Some super star chef might by sleeping deeper in you and just need to be awaken.

LA

 

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