The World According to J. Gold

Writing for the LA Times, Jonathan Gold looks past the year's various trends and flashy openings to propose a theory that the food world's biggest shift in '09 was that it went edgy and grunge, or something: "While nobody was paying attention, food quietly assumed the place in youth culture that used to be occupied by rock 'n' roll -- individual, fierce and intensely political, communal yet congenial to aesthetic extremes: embracing veganism or learning to butcher a cow; eating tofu or head cheese, bean sprouts or pigs' ears." [LAT]