I’m so glad so many listeners have asked us to talk about food more. It gave us the perfect excuse to talk about trendy, trendy foods, many of which we truly love. Some of which we don’t get. I don’t know why I had doubts that food is part of pop culture: I just got from the Pop Culture Association/American Culture Association National Conference, and it has an entire subject area  on food.

• Cupcakes. (including Muppet cupcakes, Bakerella’s Muppet cake pops, and friend Mel from JoCoCruiseCrazy and her Cupcake Friday Project
• Sriracha.
• Bacon. And peanut butter and bacon sandwiches. And Leon’s Full Service, a place where we live that has a bacon and peanut butter appetizer.
• Organic farm-to-table burgers. With bacon jam.
• Gourmet hot dogs.
• Doughnuts. Including Voodoo Donuts and Sublime Doughnuts‘ maple-bacon doughnut.
• Speakeasy restaurants.
• Street food and food trucks. Including the use of the latter at opening events of a friend’s brewery, Mystery Brewing, in place of hiring a caterer. And our super excitement that food truck weddings need to happen right now. And Awesome Cone, as mentioned on the Judge John Hodgman podcast.
• Artisan anything.
• Ramen.
• Chicken and waffles. Including Gladys Knight’s Chicken and Waffles and their presence at Disney.
• Weird chips made of various vegetables.
• Also Kale. And how Doritos and cake are not the same thing as carbs.
• Gourmet popsicles, including our local King of Pops.
• Melty ice cream vs. melty popsicles (spoiler: ice cream is better).
• Crazy salt. Including somewhere Holly had cocoa infused salt on sweet potato fries.
• Gluten-free everything.
• Back to craft beer. And the theory that artisan bitters might replace craft beer as the trendy alcohol. Also vodka infusions. And infused sugar, which I got from The Spice and Tea Exchange.
• Fennel pollen.
• Single-flower honey. And whether local honey can treat allergies.
• Pho.
• Bubble tea.
• Crazy coffees.
• Custom fold-in ice cream places.
• How Molecular Gastronomy Works
• Listener mail! On our Guilty Pleasures episode, from Karissa.

My research:

• Forbes: Top 10 Latest Food Trends
• Food Channel: Top 10 Food Trends for 2012
• Epicurious Predicts Top 10 Food Trends for 2012
• JSOnline: 10 Food Trends On the Rise
• Huffington Post: 11 Biggest Food Trends of 2011
• From fancy salt to gourmet trucks, an appetizing look at 2012

Episode link: When Trendy Foods Attack

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