With summer just around the corner, it’s time to pull your barbecue out of the garage, throw off the dust cover, and fire up the grill. Let’s get cooking!
Every country and culture has its own version of barbecue. Almost as long as there has been fire, people have been roasting meat over it! The English word ‘barbecue’ comes from the Spanish ‘barbacoa,’ a method of cooking meat that originated from the Caribbean Taino peoples. These days, barbacoa is still regularly prepared in Mexico: it usually involves spit-roasting a whole sheep or goat over an open fire, or more traditionally, cooking it in a pit covered with agave leaves.
Of course, you don’t see a lot of spit-roasting over an open fire these days. It’s much more practical for hungry suburbanites to throw their cuts of meat onto the barbecue, where it’s cooked at high heat over a controlled flame. But it seems that more and more Westerners are going beyond the traditional BBQ fare of hamburgers and hotdogs. In an increasingly diverse country, people are hungry for new experiences, sensations, and flavors.
Indeed, Mintel Research has found that almost half of UK residents enjoy diverse cuisines—and young people, in particular—are eager to branch out. Approximately one-third of UK citizens between 16 and 34 have tried Japanese and Korean cuisines.
In fact, one of the most popular styles of cuisine in Korea is Korean BBQ, a style which Westerners are literally eating up. But it’s not just the flavor of Korean BBQ that people enjoy: it’s the versatility and DIY nature of the dish. Servers bring platters of raw meat and vegetables to the table, and you cook it yourself on a coal grill that’s built into the table! You also get to choose your own flavoring.
According to Mintel, one extremely popular option which has emerged from the Korean BBQ trend is a dish called beef bulgogi. Bulgogi is a sweet and tangy marinade consisting of soy and chili paste, which is applied liberally to the beef before it’s grilled. Bulgogi flavors have become so popular in the West that they’ve made their way into widely available grocery products, like pre-mixed marinades, sauces, and even dried meat snacks.
This summer, it’s time to break out of the traditional burger box and try something new. And it’s not just Korean cuisine that’s making its way onto the menu: it’s a whole host of diverse flavors and ingredients. So why not try something unique?
Mintel found that 32% of US customers agree that they enjoy experimenting with different foods and flavors for grilling. Will you be one of them? This summer, create something incredible with Trilogy Ingredients’ BBQ flavors.
Trilogy Product Code: 443527 Korean BBQ
Interested in learning more? Reach out to your sales representative or contact us today.
