Should I eat it? David Sax on hot chicken and 2014 food trends

"Should I Eat It?" is the culinary version of our regular book review segment "Should I Read It?". David Sax, author of The Tastemakers: Why We're Crazy for Cupcakes But We're Fed Up With Fondue joins Brent for a skeptical but open-minded look at what's new in food trends. To close out 2014, David looks at some of the most fascinating food trends of the year: cooking with live fire, new Jewish cuisine, savoury yogurt and hot chicken.

Cooking with live fire 

David Sax says more and more chefs are getting back to the fundamentals by cooking food over live wood coals with wood-burning ovens, fireplaces and grills with real wood fires underneath them. But he says it's not just chicken and steak that's getting the live fire treatment - charring vegetables and burying potatoes in the fire's embers imparts incredible depth of flavour and texture too.

Should you eat it? Yes. David Sax suggests you start with any sort of meat, fish or protein - whether it's from a traditional Argentinian barbeque restaurant or a more trendy, experimental eatery. 

New Jewish cooking

David Sax says a new generation of Jewish cooks in their twenties and thirties are applying the ideas of the slow food movement to traditional Jewish cuisine - creating new interpretations of everything from gefilte fish and pastrami, to fusions with southern barbeque.

Should you eat it? David Sax recommends you try a classic brisket made with old world techniques, such as the one from Toronto restaurant Essen.

Savoury yogurt

​Dan Barber, a pioneer of the farm-to-table movement, has started a line of savoury Greek yogurts flavoured with things like beet, turnip, parsnip and tomato. The idea is to use them as ingredients in cooking. David Sax says other companies are now trying to package yogurts with savoury flavours too.

Should you eat it? Probably not. David Sax is a bit skeptical on this one because he says plain Greek yogurt can paired so well with anything -  that it's kind of pointless to buy any kind of flavoured yogurt.

Hot chicken

Taking a page out of Nashville, David Sax says hot chicken is about to hit the mainstream. It's basically southern fried chicken, but the batter infused with cayenne and chili pepper which makes for an extremely hot -- and delicious -- twist on the classic.

Should you eat it? Yes, but eater beware. David Sax says he recently tried a medium-spiced order of hot chicken from the legendary Prince's Hot Chicken Shack in Nashville, and he said he could barely eat it!