A few years ago I began seeing seeing ash in dish descriptions across Seattle restaurants; lately it's everywhere. Parsnip peel ash at the Carlile Room. Porcini ash-crusted venison at Tilth. Ash-rolled rabbit loin at Canlis. Salted alder-ash beet salad at Eden Hill.

As a culinary enhancement, ash isn’t new. Cheesemakers have traditionally coated cheeses in charcoal ash to repel insects, encourage the right molds, balance the acidity.

But ash made from vegetables is the ascendant thing now, a practice whose early popularization is often credited to Rene Redzepi at Copenhagen’s Noma in the early 2000s. In the early teens it began to hit the headliner kitchens in the big cities, until it took its usual few years to wash up on Seattle’s shore.

As at the Korean barbecue Trove, where chef Kris Kim crafts a rub of dehydrated garlic, green Szechuan peppercorn, and onion ash, then coats the exterior of a piece of confited teres major steak—otherwise known as a petite tender. While sometimes ash is white or gray, this one shines vivid black against the blush pink of the interior, providing brilliant contrast on the plate.

And palate. “We do it with sweet vegetables, like onions or parsnips or carrots, so the sweetness will caramelize,” says Trove co-owner Rachel Yang. “When charred, it delivers a hint of bitterness that is so good with the sweet. Plus the texture is really fun, like the finest powder you can find. In fact, ash is big now in part because it’s a progression of the crumbs and powders we’ve been seeing everywhere.”