Just when you thought it was safe to start reading Dining@Large again...I'm not done with the 2010 trends yet.
#7 THEY LAUGHED WHEN WE SAID "TONGUE": Last year, some bloggers said we'd gone bonkers by predicting that tongue – beef and veal – would be hot in 2009. Well … here's the Offal Truth: For 2010, it'll be tongue (including lamb) and oxtail along with beef and pork cheeks, chicken gizzards, tripe, and other innards and odd parts. "In a pig's ear," you say? That, too, along with trotters. Savvy chefs are using these odd parts to offset downsized portions of expensive steaks and chops. You interleave a few slices of strip steak with slices of smoked tongue; you top a petit filet mignon with a nugget of wine-braised beef cheek; you layer some oxtail ravioli over a half-size portion of New York strip and … bingo! … chefs create added interest and eye candy while lowering their food costs. ...
I have seen trotters and beef cheeks on menus around here, but not very often. Tongue, I don't think so. ...
Will "innards and odd parts" make it in Baltimore? I'm not sure. Liver has all but disappeared, except for pate and foie gras. I don't even see sweetbreads on menus much anymore.
Which reminds me of the time when I wrote a story on sweetbreads for the food section, and a copy editor wrote the headline "Sweetbreads -- Ain't It Gland?"
Needless to say, it was one headline that never made its way into print.
(Grilled mahi-mahi over mashed potatoes with maple candied brussels sprouts and oxtail dumplings at Kali's Court. Jed Kirschbaum/Sun photographer)