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Farmers Crop Up With Trendy Image Americans Dig Their Farmers

By JEFF HOUCK, The Tampa Tribune

Published: December 26, 2007

Farmers are hot. At least from a culinary standpoint.

Epicurious.com did its annual end-of-the-year assessment of where food is headed and found the concepts of locally grown food and organic cultivation continue to bring farmers a new kind of cool, editor James Oliver Cury says.

"I think to people who are up on food journalism, farmers are kind of sexy nowadays," says Cury, who edits the culinary site from New York City. "In previous years, you wouldn't have wanted to be associated with who is producing food and with what's on the table, not only because of how it was raised but also how it was produced. But 'organic' and 'sustainable' are hot buzzwords right now."

How deep does the trend go? Names of farms using those practices are being printed on menus at restaurants in New York City and Los Angeles as a way of showing off to customers the depths each eatery will go to provide the best-quality foods. Saluting the farmer is all the rage.

Bacon is coming back, too, Cury says.

Chefs who once cooked pork belly to be trendy are going back to bacon, partly to separate from the cooking herd and also because belly is seen as either too fatty or not as versatile as bacon.

"This Christmas season, we had bacon brittle, bacon-flavored ice cream, bacon chocolate bars, artisanal bacon, you name it," Cury says.

What will be on America's plate for 2008? Here's the Epicurious list:

•Farmers are the new celebrity chefs.

•Fancy frozen yogurt is the new designer cupcake.

•Meatballs are the new hamburger sliders.

•Cambodian is the new Thai.

•Local wine is the new local food movement.

•Fair trade is the new organic.

•Bacon is the new pork belly.

•Fancy greens are the new salad mixes.

•Quick, but high-quality, sushi is the new lunchtime salad.

•Tableside charging is the new ordering online.