Brisket, tamales, and beer are usual staples on Houstonians’ grocery lists. But it’s 2020 and everything is weird, so it’s no wonder our shopping habits reflect some unexpected grocery picks we’ve acquired a taste for this year.

To unearth the habits, Instacart’s New Year, New Cart report analyzed purchase trends and consumer survey data to uncover "shifts in shopping behavior, buying preferences, and food attitudes after nearly a year of COVID-19 pandemic living... ." The report also indicates which ingredients will likely top grocery lists in 2021.

Texas go-tos like tacos, chili, and salsa are not what Houstonians are craving. Instead, surprising ingredients like anchovies, chickpeas, and oat milk top the list of trending grocery items.

The grocery delivery service notes the sale of anchovies is up 58 percent in Houston from last year, while chickpea purchases are up 36 percent, and oat milk sales are up a whopping 300 percent.

Instacart credits shoppers’ grocery choices to 2020 being the year of the home chef, with research showing nearly half of all Americans — 47 percent — saying they’re cooking most if not all their meals at home, leading Instacart to claim, “2020’s food trends were, in one word, unpredictable.”

Case in point: Kewpie mayo, rich Japanese mayonnaise, is so popular on local grocery lists that Austin ranks third nationally in the purchase of the creamy spread, behind only Seattle and Los Angeles.

According to the Instacart report, Austin is the No. 1 market in the nation for the sale of keto products, with fifth-ranked Houston and seventh-ranked San Antonio not far behind.

In other Texas markets, the same unexpected grocery items are also trending, with the sale of chickpeas up 38 percent and oat milk sales up 79 percent in San Antonio.

The pandemic has also changed the way we shop. Instacart data shows a noticeable shift, in particular, in when shoppers are ordering, with orders placed during working hours increasing by 32 percent this year, an obvious indication of so many Americans working from home in 2020 and playing what Instacart calls “digital hooky.”

“The events of 2020 have forever changed how Americans shop for groceries and household goods,” says Laurentia Romaniuk, Instacart’s trends expert and senior product manager. “After months of binge baking, drinking more and indulging in quarantine comfort foods, our findings show that the pendulum is swinging the other way as online consumers set their sights on a new year full of bolder flavors, lower-alcohol cocktails and resolution-friendly keto snacks.”