If you have a smartphone, and any social media, you have encountered at least one short cooking video this past year. And it doesn't matter your age. From 6 to 60 years old, people are more than ever interested in food, and in people cooking. 

Platforms such as TikTok are full of content creators making what they call "FoodTok", a hashtag used 13.7 billion times. Yes, it is a big hit and a demonstration that people love seeing food when scrolling their social media. Each one of those videos has seconds to hook you up, showing a fast edit of a recipe that reaches around thirty seconds to one minute. It's fleeting, it ends in a blink of an eye, but it will make you think:

"Wow, I do want to eat this!"

The baked feta pasta is one of the biggest trends from social media that also influences everyday cooking. The recipe is simple: a block of feta cheese, cherry tomatoes, garlic, olive oil, salt, and pepper. The ingredients are roasted and mixed up together with cooked pasta. Suddenly, everybody was making it at home. The trending recipe was first made in 2019 by a Finnish blogger, Jenni Hayrinen, but boomed up almost two years later on Tiktok with more than a billion views.

Trends go changing faster than we think, and content creators on Tiktok need to be extra aware of what people want to see. Sonja Melina is not just an avid creator, but also a researcher of new trends. She loves making homemade ice cream, adapting recipes to what her followers are also watching. As most of her audience is teenagers, she knows that her content is not just for the kids, but also for grown-ups. "They watch the videos and ask their parents to buy ingredients or even appliances, like slush makers. The machine [that creates a smoothy-kind of drink] was such a hit that it was sold out," Sonja says. 

Also, the compelling aesthetics, hip music, and the short duration of the clips, are really addicting. This combination of factors transforms the flow of going from one video to another something that you lose track of time. And the content creators are very aware of this, as they are also consumers of the same content. As trends come and go, it's important for them to follow the most viewed recipes.

In 2021, the top three most viewed recipes on Tiktok were the baked feta pasta, a hack to make better quesadillas at home - when you divide a tortilla into four pieces and fold them into a perfect triangle filled with four different fillings, - and fried eggs in chili oil or pesto. What the three of them have in common is how easy they are to make, with minimum effort and a perfect finish (not just pleasing aesthetically, but also delicious.)

But not all recipes are brand-new and created to generate buzz. Some well-known and very replicated preparations have a way to return to the mainstream, and most of them are pasta or noodle recipes. "For example, vodka pasta is a recipe from 1980 and went viral through Tiktok last year," recalls Petra Väänänen from foodbytwins. The duo, composed by Petra, - a competitor in the 2022 edition of Masterchef Suomi - and her twin sister Noora, cook together to show their love for food: "We started posting also more reels on Instagram and videos to Tiktok because I think it is a very easy and attractive way to inspire people to try a new recipe."

Not just to try a new recipe, but also to get acquainted with new food cultures. To most young people, it's their first contact to Mexican recipes - like the birria tacos, which were very popular last year - or Korean traditional foods, like kimchi, and heritage recipes, such as japchae or mukbang. The fact that users from all around the world can connect with each other makes it easier for a local food culture to become global.

In fact, as the majority of people inspired by these recipes are teenagers, the responsibility for the content is even bigger. Sonja Melina sees the big impact she has when followers talk to her, being one very popular creator on Tiktok. So, she makes recipes easy to recreate, or even to find in stores, cafés, supermarkets. One example is the boba drinks, with pearls made of tapioca starch. Nowadays, it's easy to find the beverage in cafés and restaurants, mostly because it became an internet sensation. 

In a recent survey made in the US, more than 50% of social media followers said they visited a food business because it looked appetizing. Restaurant and fast-food chains are hiring food influencers from social media to help shape their digital presence, and even to create branded products to be sold in their stores. Those food creators have total freedom over their videos, what and when to post, different from having to pass through an editorial choice. And that makes the process of transforming something into a trend much faster.

The main thing about "FoodTok" is how it creates an instant closeness between creator and viewer. It can be through a voice-over of the ingredients list and preparations, ASMR, a personal story about the maker, or simply a fun music. It can be beautifully edited, or a clumsy hand guiding the phone. It can be whimsical, it can be raw. And all of those are valid, catchy, and, mostly, approachable. 

Photo: SHVETS production at Pexels