Looking at 2012 Food Trends That Never Were

You've seen those lazy year-end roundups, typically headlined "Foods for Next Year" and invented by food editors too hungover from holiday parties to do any real research. Trends that were predicted but didn't happen? The folks at Allrecipes.com keep track.

Here are the top examples so far this year. Cocktail-driven fails: bitters, moonshine. Exotic fails: insects, seaweed. Regional fail: Peruvian dishes. They might have been on a restaurant menu or two, but they never migrated into home kitchens. How does Allrecipes know? They actually count the clicks on their website.

Allrecipes.com was founded in Seattle 16 years ago. They're now part of Readers Digest but their headquarters are still in offices overlooking Westlake Park.

Less processed food, more fruit and vegetables, for one thing. More South American recipes, they thought. (Wrong, it turned out.) Less meat in general. More pies. The biggest trend: more frequent neighborhood shopping at local bakeries, farmers markets, fruit stands, wine and butcher shops.

You could say these are self-fulfilling prophecies, that home cooks with the inclination to use the internet to look up recipes are more savvy than most, and that trends like "eating healthier" are really nothing new. But it's hard to argue with the data provided by 500 million visits.
· Allrecipes [Official Site]
[Ronald Holden photo]