Trends

Taking a cue from scout troops and high-school bands, a congressional candidate from El Paso is selling tamales to finance his campaign.

"The biggest problem for people who want to participate in political life is we don't have big bank accounts," explains Jaime O. Perez, who's challenging incumbent Silvestre Reyes in the upcoming Republican primary. "My sister said if I wanted, she could make tamales for me. I thought 'Oh, that's nice of her to offer,' but the more I thought about it, I decided it was a really good idea."

Now thoroughly sold on the grassroots fundraising strategy, he adds, "It will be the staple of the campaign."

Perez is selling red pork, vegetable, chicken and green chile tamales for $11.99 a dozen. While he concedes he can't possibly sell enough $1 tamales to underwrite the entire cost of a congressional campaign – winning House candidates in 2008 spent, on average, $1.1 million apiece – he figures 10,000 tamales could help buy the yard signs, leaflets and lapel stickers he needs.

Chuy's, the offbeat Tex-Mex joint where the Bush twins were famously nabbed for underage drinking, is looking to replicate its success in Tennessee with future expansion plans for outlets around Birmingham, Lexington and Memphis.

"Basically, in the next four years, we should be close to 50 restaurants," spokeswoman Ashley Ingle says. "We've branched out from Austin over the years, and we're kind of trying to replicate that hub in the Southeast."

Chuy's has opened restaurants in five Texas metro areas since 2006, when a venture capitalist pumped money into the franchise. But the chain didn't stray past the state's borders until this fall, when it opened a location in Franklin, Tenn. (Another restaurant group operates an unrelated chain of Chuy's in California and Arizona.)

"Nashville has a lot of similarities to Austin," Ingle explains, citing the freeway network, live music scene and Dell Computers' presence.

While the vast majority of Mexican restaurants around Nashville serve the same lineup of enchiladas and chimichangas, Ingle says Chuy's specializes in recipes drawn from the microgastronomic region that runs from New Mexico's Hatch Valley through South Texas' Rio Grande Valley. While dishes like the chain's signature steak burrito and chicken tortillas are likely familiar to eaters weaned on bean dip, Ingle says they're distinguished by the restaurant's use of freshly-made blue corn tortillas and fresh green chile sauce.

Merlot is a red-wine grape grown in many vino regions, including France (where it's the most widely planted grape for Bordeaux wine, accounting for two-thirds of the world's total plantings), the U.S. (mostly California but also Washington and Long Island), Italy and many New World regions (including Australia and New Zealand).

After the film Sideways (2004), Merlot morphed into a bad, sad reputation, its full-body profile snubbed in favor of other reds, including Pinot Noir. Yet it wasn't as terrible as what had happened in France years earlier: a severe frost in 1956, vintages left to rot during the '60s and Bordeaux's banning of Merlot vines between 1970 and 1975 nearly destroyed Merlot. In the '90s there was an upswing and Merlot soared back into popularity with Americans – only to be rattled once again when Sideways debuted. Now, however, Merlot is making a comeback, with many excellent bottles being released.

Food is like fashion: full of trends that are hot plates one moment and cold leftovers the next.

Sure, there are fundamentals that will never go out of style, like a well-cooked steak or a creamy bisque. But then there are fads -- Chilean sea bass, sous vide, molecular gastronomy. Like fashion's flashes in the pan, some are gaudy extravaganzas meant to attract attention and instant gratification. On the other hand, some become classics passed down through generations to come. No one can truly predict what the public will embrace, either in the short or long term.

What does the future hold for food trends? What exciting, silly, over-the-top surprises await us tomorrow, besides jet-pack pizza delivery? Drool over these epicurean prognostications and tremble at our ability to peer into the unknown. Here are food trends that we 110 percent guarantee will be served at any point between this new year and 500 years from now.

Professional culinary trend spotters may crunch numbers, poll diners and quiz chefs before issuing their predictions for next year's food scene, but their annual pronouncements hardly qualify as hard science. In most cases, food forecasters go with their gut.

In that spirit, Slashfood consulted a few psychics to find out what 2010 holds for the nation's eaters. Surprisingly or not, nearly all their readings jived with prophecies put out by fancy restaurant consulting firms.