Source: NYT > Business
Ube's explosive popularity shows that viral food success now hinges less on culinary merit or cultural authenticity than on photogenic properties. Brands and restaurants are explicitly engineering around visual dominance—vivid colors, novelty—rather than taste or tradition, creating a new gatekeeping mechanism where visual distinctiveness on social feeds determines market access. Filipino culinary heritage becomes secondary to the yam's purple hue. Ingredient selection increasingly flows backward from TikTok's aesthetic demands rather than forward from kitchens and communities.