Really? These Are the Best of the Decade?

Today I got yet another email from MyRecipes.com, but instead of a recipe I'd probably never make, it heralded the top 10 food trends of the previous decade. With the demise of Gourmet, there's sort of a wide-open field for the leading voice in food journalism, so why shouldn't the "editors" of Food Channel (not to be confused with Food Network) take a stab at proclaiming the best things to happen to food from 2000 to 2009?

Since I'm an amateur food anthropologist/historian, I clicked the email's link just for shits and giggles.

Sadly, there were no giggles to be had. Shits? Yes. Groans? Oh yes. Eye rolls galore? Indeed!

I mean, do you think a list that spotlights bacon as one of the top 10 food trends of the first decade of the 21st century is really
worth the bandwidth it takes up? Bacon, Gentle Reader! What's so revolutionary about cured pork belly or fatback? It's...atherosclerosis in convenient, red and white, greasy strips. And it's highlighted in the same list as healthful whole grains and oils. If that's not some type of irony (even if it is Alanis Morissette's brand of irony), then I don't know what is.

If you need a good guffaw, Gentle Reader, check out the list for yourself. I guess it's proof that just about any monkey with a computer connected to the Internet these days can be a food journalist.