# What food trends have you noticed? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [February 8, 2010, 8:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-food-trends-have-you-noticed/528187 "2010-02-08T20:23:39Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![pope\_hentai](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ee59a6/32.png) [@pope\_hentai](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pope_hentai)\ **Post date:** [February 10, 2010, 9:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-food-trends-have-you-noticed/528187/81 "2010-02-10T21:34:39Z")
> [@tdn](#): > > That reminds me – I’m starting to see fried pickles on more and more menus. the newest bbq joint where i’m at has fried pickled green tomatoes… ---
**Author:** ![tdn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/94ad74/32.png) [@tdn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tdn)\ **Post date:** [February 10, 2010, 9:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-food-trends-have-you-noticed/528187/82 "2010-02-10T21:45:07Z")
Wow, I was not aware of the fried pickle thing until just about a year ago. Maybe it was slow coming to this area. ---
**Author:** ![troub](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/troub/32/14802_2.png) [@troub](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/troub)\ **Post date:** [February 11, 2010, 1:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-food-trends-have-you-noticed/528187/83 "2010-02-11T01:56:29Z")
> [@pulykamell](#): > > Also, there’s been a growing trend towards organ meats and offal. Lard and animal fats are slowly being reintroduced into mainstream kitchens. Old world style charcuterie is catching on. In terms of drinks, the popularity of rye whiskey has been steadily growing since about 2003-ish. There’s a drink that went from being the most popular distilled beverage in America, to near-extinction, and now is back again. Yep, as **Labrador Deceiver** said, I think this is pretty accurate. We go out to eat a fair bit, and St. Louis actually has a fairly decent food scene for a city of its size and type (smallish, midwestern, etc.). For a while now the “foodies” have seemed to have an infatuation with stuff like menudo and tripe from one of the “authentic” mexican places I frequent, and lately at the really “nice” places (in multiple cities) I’ve been seeing more and more things like sweetbreads, tongue, liver and liver terrene (I actually really _like_ liver, but the terrene wasn’t so great), pork belly (which was fantastic) – basically upscale places using what might be considered “unglamorous” ingredients. Not quite as unglamorous as the chicken feet and beef knuckles at one of the Chinese places I visit (I haven’t had them). 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Lily\_Milliner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/8edcca/32.png) [@Lily\_Milliner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lily_Milliner)\ **Post date:** [February 11, 2010, 3:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-food-trends-have-you-noticed/528187/84 "2010-02-11T03:14:56Z")
I’ve only skimmed the thread, but I’m going to add a (to me) even more recent twist to the chipotle trend: smoked paprika. The first I heard of it was a cauliflower recipe in Mark Bittman’s NYTimes column maybe a couple years ago. Since then I’ve seen it called for quite a few times in magazines and so forth. I gather it’s traditional in some regions of Spain? I like it, but a little goes a long way. ---
**Author:** ![ralph124c](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/8797f3/32.png) [@ralph124c](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ralph124c)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2010, 12:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-food-trends-have-you-noticed/528187/85 "2010-02-12T00:47:45Z")
Deep fried tarantula spiders, deep fried scorpions, and other weird items. ---
**Author:** ![Spoons](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spoons/32/3141_2.png) [@Spoons](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spoons)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2010, 2:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-food-trends-have-you-noticed/528187/86 "2010-02-12T02:35:00Z")
> [@mariposalabrown](#): > > Fried pickles have been on most pub menus I have seen for the past ten years. Man are they good with ranch! I never even heard of fried pickles until I was in Fort Worth, Texas for business about ten years ago. Now, I’m starting to see them here. But they’re not as good as the ones I had ten years ago in Texas. 🙂 Does any place still advertise a mesquite grill? I seem to recall they were very popular back in the mid-1980s. Places would advertise “mesquite-grilled steaks,” for example. Mesquite charcoal apparently provided much more heat than regular charcoal. But now, I see nothing about them at all. I guess they were a passing food fad, but if not, what happened to them? Are they still around? ---
**Author:** ![SoozieQ](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/dfb087/32.png) [@SoozieQ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SoozieQ)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2010, 3:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-food-trends-have-you-noticed/528187/87 "2010-02-12T03:26:45Z")
Fiber – fiber in yogurt, fiber in splenda… ---
**Author:** ![jormundgondir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/dfb087/32.png) [@jormundgondir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jormundgondir)\ **Post date:** [February 14, 2010, 3:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-food-trends-have-you-noticed/528187/88 "2010-02-14T03:18:12Z")
Also the gourmet doughnut thing is in right now. I am really hoping that bacon goes “out” a little bit, because bacon chocolate (tried it, shudder) and bacon maple doughnuts are really unnecessary. ---
**Author:** ![AboutAsWeirdAsYouCanGet](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/22d042/32.png) [@AboutAsWeirdAsYouCanGet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AboutAsWeirdAsYouCanGet)\ **Post date:** [February 14, 2010, 6:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-food-trends-have-you-noticed/528187/89 "2010-02-14T06:03:52Z")
> [@](#): > > the newest bbq joint where i’m at has fried pickled green tomatoes… Are you in Alabama? Is it run by Idige and Ruth? 😃 [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-food-trends-have-you-noticed/528187.md?page=4)