Some things never go out of style

‘Tis the season … for evergreen articles about what Australia’s inner-suburban bourgeois bohemians will supposedly be eating over the coming twelve months. This year, Fairfax’s Good Food supplement is tipping 2013 as the year of Mexican and Asian food, “artisanal shopping”, “novelty dining” (“food trucks, children’s food for grown-ups and the ‘casualisation’ of menus are the restaurant trends for 2013”), and “back to basics” with a focus on vegetables.

It’s not necessarily fair to pick on Fairfax – these stories run everywhere this time of year, and even this site has been known to opine on trends from time to time – but really. This story could have easily run in 2010. Or 2008. Or any December over the past ten years. Such articles are a rough admixture of randomly selected press releases and the dopey aspirationalism of young middle-class trendies (“Like, we should all eat more vegetables? ‘Cause meat’s like bad and stuff? But it’d be cool if we could have, like, food trucks? Like in LA?”).

“And you may find yourself in a beautiful kitchen … with artisinal bacon … same as it ever was!”

Last year Fairfax predicted that 2012 would be the year we, among other things, “connected with food communities” (whatever that means), shot our own dinner (I wish), and ate a lot of high-end bacon and other porky products (done and done!). It was also supposed to be the year fine dining went died (they always say that) and everyone did their kitchens up to look “retro” (which always sounds like a great idea until you realise you’re going to have to sell the joint some day). And of course, ate more vegetables. Even as we ate all that bacon and freshly-shot elk.

Way back in 2007 the word was that we clever foodie types would all be obsessed with probiotics, chemical-free food, fair trade, and fancy salt. Plus ca change, eh?

Honestly, Fairfax could run the same damn piece every year and no one would be the wiser.

Except, of course, the Prick.