Korean!

January 19

It’s official: Korean will be the next big ethnic cuisine in America, at least according to the 33 readers of this blog who were good enough to respond to my poll on the topic, eight of whom picked Korean.
Seven picked Indian and, well, you can see the results yourself below.
I asked about Roman cuisine because we've seen a little trendlet of Roman happening here in New York, as Florence Fabricant reported in The New York Times last week. I asked about Scandinavian because that was advocated by my friend Jody Eddy of Art Culinaire. She’s been on a big Iceland kick lately. Technically, last time I checked, Iceland wasn’t part of Scandinavia, but it’s close enough. I mean, they’re practically Vikings up there.
I think it’s interesting that regional Italian got no (0) votes. I’d be curious to know what the three people who said the next cuisine would be one I didn’t list think the next cuisine will be. If you’re one of those people, or even if you’re not, feel free, by all means, to comment below.

My next poll is in honor of the fact that we’re in the planning stages of our next MUFSO conference and, as always, we’re looking for feedback.

What will be the next big “ethnic” food to emerge in the United States?

Indian: 7 (21%)

Korean: 8 (24%)

West African: 3 (9%)

Roman: 1 (3%)

not Roman, but some other regional Italian: 0 (0%)

Scandinavian: 3 (9%)

Regional Mexican: 1 (3%)

Malaysian/Indonesian: 1 (3%)

Vietnamese: 1 (3%)

Regional American : 1 (3%)

An ethnic cuisine you didn’t have the good sense to list: 3 (9%)

Ethnic fads are done; it’s all about local, seasonal ingredients now: 4 (12%)