Bring the heat this summer with ‘fricy’ foods

“Tropical fruit and chilli sauce” is a tried-and-tested flavour combination that “works”, said Lucy Knight in The Guardian. The zingy mix of fruity and spicy – “fricy” – flavours has been around in South American cuisine for years. Now, though, it’s being tipped as the food trend of the summer here, with “more fresh, spicy, exciting flavour combinations” appearing on UK menus.

‘Fricy’ may sound like a “silly word” but the demand is real, Holly Thomson, food editor at online food retailer Sous Chef, told the paper. The website has seen a 19% year-on-year increase in sales of the “hero product” of the trend: a Mexican lime, salt and chilli spice blend called Tajín.

“The hashtag #fricy hasn’t quite gone viral” yet, said BBC Bitesize, but there are “plenty” of posts celebrating the flavour combination. The Mexican drink mangonada, more traditionally known as chamoynada, a mix of mango with chamoy, a condiment made from pickled, spiced fruit, has “more than 47k TikTok posts with people trying the fricy taste for themselves”. Spicy fruit bowls that mix “fruit such as pineapple and mango covered in spices like chilli” are also having a moment.

Food trends usually rely on “emotional pull” and “visual appeal”. Just as the “striking purple” hue is responsible for the rise of ube, or purple yam, the “vivid yellows, oranges, reds and browns” of the mangonada makes people “curious” to taste it.

The mangonada has lured many customers into Mango Twist, a London café founded by Peru-born Dominic Vargas, which sells its own version of the drink. The “tangy, spicy, sweet, salty” combination is “something you wouldn’t find in the UK that easily”, Vargas told The Guardian.

But this isn’t the first trend marrying the sweet and savoury. People have been “endlessly seeking umami” flavours in their food, Marks & Spencer food trends lead Annette Peters told The Times. She added that this explained the increasing demand for miso-infused desserts because the “balance of sweet and savoury gives you such a depth of flavour”. As long as the dish doesn’t “tip into cloyingly sweet”, the pairing can be “delicious”.