Last week, the New York Times announced that the Korean taco was going to be the next big thing riding into the East Coast, white-hot from its domination of Los Angeles — another episode in America's passionate love affair with faddy foods. This summer's flings include the popsicle, cakeballs and macarons, heirs apparent to the cupcake. And that, of course, doesn't include a host of other nutritional and diet fads (the hallelujah diet or ingesting a tapeworm, anybody?).
As a recent immigrant, I have to admit that I find this kind of promiscuous eating baffling. In America, I'm frequently overwhelmed by the media frenzy around the next new flavor, by the e-mails in my in box every morning aiming to keep me on-trend. I'm confused by the conflation of food and fashion and amazed that food trends change as often as a clothing house's collections. In India, where I grew up, food is either the transmitter of tradition or pure body fuel, sacred custom or a simple means of sustenance. Even when I lived in London — a city as given to consumerism as New York — I didn't see the kind of food fetishism I've encountered here.
So what is it about America's history, culture or psychology that makes its landscape so ripe for the emergence of one fashionable food after another?
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