The decade is over (depending on what school of thought you belong to), and its end has given us the opportunity to look back at the different trends and practices that shaped the years between 2009 and 2019. It was a very packed, fast-changing decade that witnessed  the prolific rise of social media and more accessibility to the internet: two things that changed the way we interact with the world and influenced pretty much every aspect of our lives.

Food is not left out of this discussion. The way we interact with food both personally and commercially has gone through several changes in the 2010s. Some of these trends were necessary, some good, some just fashionable, and some really unnecessary. Let’s highlight a few of the food trends that defined the last decade, especially in Nigeria.

Do you remember the good old days when you actually had to get up and go to get food? These days, food delivery is the first word in food service circles, and while it is very stressful, it is also very lucrative. Franchises like Jumia Foods have been built around customers’ inability or unwillingness to leave the house to get food, but food delivery is more than that.

Today, you can conveniently order bowls of soup, stew and even pre-cut vegetables to be delivered and frozen for home use, removing the stress of home cooking. In fact, I could say that the food delivery system is built around busy professionals, and it is thriving.

The popularity of fast food in the early 2000s took a sharp about-turn in the 2010s. There has been a dramatic increase in young people with obesity-related diseases like diabetes and heart conditions, but that’s not all that has driven the diet culture. People are generally more sedentary, and societal standards of beauty revolves around a slim figure and flat stomach.

Dieting has found its way into Nigeria’s notoriously starch-based diet, leading to innovations like vegan Nigerian food, the keto diet, gluten-free diet, intermittent fasting, and of course, rapid cleanses that claim to do everything from fast-tracking your weight loss journey to beating the bloat and giving you a smaller waistline.

Ever since Instagram exploded into the limelight in 2012, it has become more than just a place to put awkward group pictures of friends on a night out. Instagram has become the lens through which we see the world, and invariably, our food.

These days, we most likely look at a restaurant’s Instagram page before even looking at their menu. Visually pleasing food is more likely to get customers in the door, and restaurants have capitalised on that. It's starting to seem like there's a new "beautiful" restaurant open in Lagos every week, but it's been proven that having an Instagrammable restaurant or artistic food does not translate to taste, unfortunately.

Cooking with a recipe used to be almost taboo, but now, not seasoned cooks and people who want to learn new recipes flood to these Instagram and YouTube accounts for step-by-step guidance on turning out delicious Nigerian meals every time.

I have a theory that this trend was influenced by the high number of Nigerians migrating to Canada, America and the farthest reaches of the world in search of greener pastures and for school. The lack of familiar ingredients to cook Nigerian food with drove a lot of savvy cooks to find alternatives that work in the western world, making Nigerian food a staple no matter where you are in the world.

Food trucks have made getting fast food so accessible, especially for small businesses that can’t afford real estate. It’s a movement now: you can get anything from noodles and eggs to a margarita depending on your location. Pop-up restaurants have that same excitement of a pop-up truck coupled with real fine dining, and part of their appeal is getting to try their food before they disappear.

Brunch went from something we used to only hear about in novels to an attainable Nigerian experience. These days, there are a lot of restaurants offering classic brunch deals every day, while others have special brunch menus on specific days like Sunday.

Ofada Boy and Danfo Bistro have one thing in common: they made street food less street and more trendy. You can have ewa agoyin and ofada and ewedu while not feeling like you’re eating from the streets. It’s the best of both worlds: street food with a restaurant experience.

One interesting innovation of the last few years is Nigerian food that studied abroad. Our local food has been reimagined in several ways, like this agbalumo and zobo sorbet from Hans and Rene. Integrating local ingredients into western cuisine is an exciting way to put Nigerian food on the international map while making international cuisine more locally appealing.

This is not an exhaustive list; tell us the trends you think made waves this last decade.