Tis the Season for Lists - The Stew is Trendspotting

By Anthony Todd in Food on Dec 9, 2010 4:40PM

Many of our readers probably caught Time Out Chicago's famous"100 Best Things We Ate This Year" list earlier this week - one of our favorite pieces of food coverage every year. December is the season for lists of one sort or another, and they will start coming fast and furious over the next few weeks. The Stew just released its list of dining trends for 2011 - in the model of Project Runway, they have announced what will be "in" and what will be "out." The list, whatever it's other qualities, is a hilarious read, though we are hoping that not all of it comes true.

Each dead 2010 trend will be replaced with something new - for instance, our love of beets will be replaced by new affection for brussels sprouts. They might be a little behind on this one - we've seen both on the menu at every spot we've dined at for six months. "Cooking meat" will be replaced by "butchering meat" which seems dead on, given all the recent opening announcements, and we welcome the replacement of the played-out St. Germain with Carpano Antica.

We're not so sure about the demise of bacon, short ribs and pork belly - they are just so wonderful. Especially when the replacements aren't quite as seductive - chicken skin, goat belly and neck bones. Wonderful things, all, but they will have to pry the pork belly out of our cold dead hands. And if the cupcake trend gets replaced by a meatball trend, please someone bludgeon us to death with a tenderizer. Check out the whole list if you need a diversion. What trends do you think are on their way out?