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" The rapacious appetite of the food media requires they declare new trends and jettison old ones every other month \u2014 remember the banh mi rage? Fried chicken&amp;#039;s fifteen minutes of fame? Hamburger mania? Up, down, in and out. So, this being year&amp;#039;s end, predictions for next year&amp;#039;s food trends are being proposed with dispatch.  The James Beard Foundation insists the following are going to be big: locavorism, redefined (&amp;quot;rescue heirlooms from obscurity or extinction&amp;quot;); doughnuts; Thai food; the new Nordic pantry, where &amp;quot;buckthorn and wood sorrel will appear at more American restaurants&amp;quot; (sure, right); and others. The Food Channel&amp;#039;s predictions for 2012 include the growing popularity of black market foods, whatever they may be; shopping schizophrenia (?); better college food; &amp;quot;Groovin&amp;#039; On Peruvian&amp;quot;; and the rise of the YouTube chef. Somehow I&amp;#039;m not convinced any of this is going to sweep American gastronomy, although college food programs are improving. Here are some of the things I think you&amp;#039;ll be seeing in 2012, and a few things that will not: \u2022 At best, the economy won&amp;#039;t completely tank, but it will be sluggish enough to keep restaurants sales flat, with more people dining out far less often and spending a lot less money. Instead of ordering &amp;quot;little plates,&amp;quot; people will order one big plate and share.  \u2022 Expense accounts will be cut way back so that few businessmen and women will be popping for wines over $100 a bottle. The opening of new steakhouses will slow way down, and expect the closing of some famous-name restaurants in Las Vegas. \u2022 The extravagance and elitism of modernist/molecular/progressive cuisine will stop the already tiresome, wheezing movement in its tracks. No one is going to be opening a place serving thirty-course, $200 meals made out of thin air and chemically-induced aromas.  \u2022 Except maybe in Chicago, the overbuilt gastropub scene will die down as people realize it now costs just as much to eat rabbit rillettes from a jar, a pork chop, and two bottles of artisanal beer as to go to a high-end steakhouse and order the porterhouse for two. \u2022 While pizzas will appear on 99 percent of all American menus in 2012, the craze for creative toppings like truffle oil, sushi, buckhorn, and wood sorrel will cease.  \u2022 Peruvian food has no chance of becoming a trend for the simple reason that beyond ceviches \u2014 already ubiquitous \u2014 there&amp;#039;s not a helluva lot more to Peruvian cuisine. \u2022 The hot new food of 2012 will be Asian dumplings. Bank on it. \u2022 The retro cocktail of 2012 will be the Old Fashioned. \u2022 Better, cheaper French country wines will be imported, while inferior, more expensive Spanish and South American wines will try to flood the market. The term &amp;quot;California Cult Wine,&amp;quot; referring to boutique estates charging outrageous prices for high alcohol fruit bombs will fade from the media, just as the wines themselves go unsold.  \u2022 Wine guru Robert Parker will wake up one day with total amnesia and a vague sense that he was once a rodeo rider.  \u2022 The most hyped cookbook of 2012 will weigh 275 pounds, be bound in wood sorrel leaves on paper recycled from tofu, and be titled Lutefisk and Reindeer: The New Cuisine of Today&amp;#039;s Latvia. Caroline Kennedy will publish a bestseller titled Recipes My Mother Would Have Made If She Ever Set Foot in the Kitchen.  \u2022 No one in his right mind will open an Italian restaurant charging $26 for a plate of pasta. \u2022 The Michelin Guide, whose tire-company owners are making major sales inroads in Japan, will declare 392 new three-star restaurants in Osaka &amp;quot;worth a journey&amp;quot; in your car. \u2022 Hollywood will make a movie from Frank Bruni&amp;#039;s novel Born Round, starring Jonah Hill. Ruth Reichl will be played by Bernadette Peters.  \u2022 PETA will go on a full-scale campaign to get the country of Turkey to change its name to Eggplant. PLUS: More John Mariani on Esquire&amp;#039;s Eat Like a Man Blog and John Mariani&amp;#039;s Official Site "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.esquire.com/food-drink/a12205/top-food-trends-2012-6626424/?src=rss>