la.foodblogging

Basil foam as created and invented by Ferran Adria at El Bulli, Spain.

Are you fed up with foam?

All truffle-oiled out?

Deathly sick of soft serve?

During the eighties in restaurants and kitchens everywhere (at least in Sydney), there was such a wholesale preoccupation with sun-dried tomatoes, placing them front and centre in virtually every menu item and featured at almost every dinner party, that the predominance of this overpowering and concentrated flavour soon became overkill.

I avoid sun-dried tomatoes to this day.

Flash forward to Christmas, late 2001, when we were travelling through Europe. It was a memorable trip – Christmas in Paris, snowboarding in the French Alps over New Years Eve, the thrilling debut of a gorgeous and unifying currency – the Euro – and, of course the emergence of a culinary sensation – foam! That strange, delicately flavoured, ethereal and gossamer-like substance dressing your plate in the hallowed halls of haute cuisine.

Well, it’s 2007 and culinary foam doesn’t appear to be fading away any time soon, even though Marcel Vigneron on TV’s Top Chef probably put the final nail in its coffin.

Is there any item or ingredient on a menu that, as soon as your eyes light upon it, instigates a massive yawn?

How do you feel about the prevalence of that rather pungent delicacy known as white truffle oil?

What about the increasingly ubiquitous appearance of sweet potato fries?

Are you heartily fed up with the tapas – aka small plates – fad?

Does the appearance of yet another donut or cupcake bakery fill you with dread?

Can you ever have enough Pinkberry or other version of frozen yoghurt?

Which LA food fads do you think are tired, lame, played out and soooo-five-minutes-ago-dot-com??

By MaxMillion (see more of her posts). Max Million is the nom de 'net of Pauline Adamek. Born in Sydney, Australia, Pauline has lived in Los Angeles for the past thirteen years and finds it agrees with her. She has been reviewing films and filing celebrity-based interview articles since 1991, and has filed stories from various international film festivals, including Cannes, Venice, Berlin, Toronto and Sundance. She completed a family cookbook and has also written novels for 8-12 year olds. She is the creator and host of ArtsBeatLA.