CLEVELAND — The food delivery service DoorDash just released a national consumer survey detailing the top food trends the year, and given that 2020 has been one of the most uncomfortable years in modern history, perhaps it’s no surprise that the findings were dominated by comfort food.
We’re all familiar with the term “Eat Your Feelings”, well according to these results, Americans not only ate their feelings this year, they dipped them in ranch and blue cheese.
The most-ordered item of 2020 was fried chicken fingers, not to be confused with its slightly classier sibling The fried chicken sandwich at number 2, followed by mac and cheese, chips and guacamole, and apple pie, because last time I checked, this is still America, where we just order whole apple pies and have strangers leave them on our porches, as the forefathers intended.
The study also revealed the "Top Ten Foods On The Rise," led by sausage egg and cheese biscuits, omelets, carrot Cake and cinnamon rolls. I’m less disturbed by the fact that this list looks like what a convicted murderer orders as his last meal, and more by this odd shift to breakfast foods.
Look, chicken fingers are one thing but there’s just something next level decadent about having Western Omelets and biscuits sent to our homes. Seems like a bit of a red flag, ya know? Seems like we’re giving up. Like, if America were your friend and he was behaving like this, you’d call to check on him.
But, that is strongly contrasted by the far more hopeful statistic that 72% of Americans plan to eat healthier in 2021. So that’s good.
I wanted to bounce the findings of this report off of someone who’s actually in the business so I reached out to the owner of Sauce The City located in on West 25th and recent winner of the title “Best Chicken Sandwich in Cleveland”.
"That trend is absolutely true. People love chicken, and Cleveland loves its Chicken. America loves its comfort food," Chef Vick Searcy Jr. told me.
"Food is definitely something that can be used to brighten up people's days. it's just that one or two bites, couple of seconds, of freedom, of love, of joy, of nostalgic feeling."
It impossible to say how much healthier we would have eaten in 2020 if not for all of the depressing nonsense we’ve had to deal with. I have no doubt many of us allowed ourselves the escapism of a more indulgent diet as a mild coping mechanism, and I don’t think anybody should feel bad about that, but let’s be honest Ohio, it’s not like if not for the pandemic, the top “most-ordered” items were gonna be Kale and steamed beets.
But my favorite statistic from the whole study is the 72% of Americans who are planning on eating healthier next year. Now, will they all actually do that? Of course not. Not even a fraction. Much like New Years resolutions its primarily just well intentioned wishful thinking that will not come to fruition.
But that’s not the point, the POINT is that 2020, for all of its horrors, didn’t manage to knock the hope and delusion out of we Americans and our uncanny ability to convince ourselves that next year is going to be better, and so are we.
This is Mike Polk, eating some Cheddar Bay Biscuits that I just had delivered for this piece and that I will be expensing, to 3News.
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(Editor's Note: The below video aired on December 2, 2020)