LFood trends sometimes crystallize around small details. In the highly codified world of culinary marketing, the bowl has become a piece of tableware that can pay off big. Put it forward in a recipe, spell it American, and bowl suddenly metamorphoses into a vessel capable of turning any dish into gold, any fast food concept into a flourishing business. Witness the incredible popularity gained in recent years by “power bowls”, “acai bowls” and other “poke bowls”.
Often bright in color, brimming with a variety of ingredients and served in generous portions, these exotic-sounding, tantalizing-looking specialties all share – you guessed it – one thing in common: they are assembled and eaten inside a round, hollow container. Everywhere, from supermarket shelves to the latest fashionable restaurants via social networks, recipes in a bowl occupy the culinary landscape with the same significance as a little catchy music.
The bowl unconsciously refers to a certain idea of childhood
On home meal delivery applications, they panic the algorithms and are classified in separate categories, in the same way as kebabs, pizzas and sushi. The “poke bowl”, in particular, crushes the competition. According to a report published in 2021 by the company Deliveroo, this dish inspired by traditional Hawaiian cuisine (composed of diced raw fish and garnished with rice, fruits and vegetables) represents 40% of orders placed on the platform. at lunch time.
We can no longer count the number of brands that are opening by duplicating the concept in the medium and large cities of France. The most famous of them, Pokawa, founded in 2017 in a small kitchen in the Paris region, now has 77 franchised restaurants in France and abroad. On Instagram, #bowl search takes you into a vertiginous vortex in which more than 4 million photos and videos compete for the poster. There is something hypnotic about the experience: the more the images of food scroll by, the greater the temptation to cross the screen to grab the bowls and make a meal out of them.
suggestive power
Visually, food presented in a bowl is attractive in that it seems ready to fall under the yoke of our chopsticks, spoons or forks. In an article from the online magazine Quartzentitled The Reasons Why Food Tastes Better in a Bowl Than on a Plate (“the reasons why a dish is better in a bowl than on a plate”), Charles Spence, a professor of experimental psychology, attempts to explain the suggestive power at work when we eat from a bowl. “When we come across a dish, our brain tries to predict its taste and how it will satisfy us. (…) At the sight and touch of a bowl, the brain will send back more the signal of a hearty and comforting dish. In equal proportions, the weight that one feels in the hand makes the quantity of food seem greater than if it had been served on a plate – in the same way, one will find the flavors and aromas more intense . »
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