With TikTok always bringing new and interesting food trends, Label volunteer, Shirlyn Ng, shares her thoughts on Emily Mariko’s ‘Salmon Sushi Bowl’ Trend as well as the other food trends that have surfaced on TikTok throughout the pandemic.
I’m sure this will sound familiar to you if you are a TikTok user.
Emily Mariko’s most viral salmon sushi bowl video, posted on 21st September, has almost 46 million views and 4.6 million likes on TikTok. Since then, big food accounts and news websites such as Popsugar and Insider have been posting about her famous bowl, teaching others how to make it.
Mariko has garnered over 4 million followers on TikTok by sharing short clips of her lifestyle and, most recently, by making healthy food in her kitchen. Her famous silhouette on the internet is of her crouching over her kitchen counter mixing or squeezing sriracha over her food. All of her recent videos each have millions of views, showing her popularity and the TikTok algorithm’s favour of her, since it is common to have only one video “blow up” on TikTok and never go viral again.
Meanwhile, food trends have been popping up all over TikTok: from pesto eggs, the four-quadrant tortilla wrap hack, to feta pasta (Finnish) and Dalgona coffee (Korean). These have reached international audiences as even I, who’s from Malaysia, have heard about all of these. Personally, I’ve used the TikTok tortilla wrap hack many a time for lunch and dinner because it is the best way to eat wraps, in my opinion!
It is so refreshing seeing different cultures pop up in the trends. Food trends are worth the hype because they often don’t cost much to recreate and it gives the audience a fun afternoon or evening. Imagine teenagers who don’t cook suddenly in the kitchen beside their moms testing out the trends; what an amazing way for family interaction as the previous lockdowns forced everyone in. TikTok users are also relatively young, most in university or new graduates. Cooking is so daunting, so the food hacks help beginner cooks who are just trying to survive living on their own. Food trends show that TikTok is not just mindless scrolling, the audiences can learn and bring new skills into their lives.
2020 was a dark year for most, and food was the only constant. To have had so many creative and new foods to try out has certainly been one of the highlights of TikTok. While some food trends are followed just for fun, the salmon sushi bowl has been very impactful in the way it helps the audience craft an easy and healthy bowl for their lunch or dinner.
Link of TikTok video:
The Salmon Sushi Bowl: leftover salmon, rice, soy sauce, Kewpie mayonnaise, sriracha, a pack of roasted seaweed and a side of kimchi.
