Dear Diary,
The National Restaurant Association convention (or NRA as we call it, at the risk of being confused with the Evil Empire of the Other R) was in Chicago last week, and there was only one day I could make it down to McCormick Place, which kind of broke my heart because this is the main national gathering of My Tribe. I have other tribal affiliations, notably with publishers, journalists, and librarians, but their conventions just don’t give me that same sense that I have wandered into the bazaar of the most exotic city on earth. The aisles are lined with gleaming, gorgeously lit pastry display units; ice cream machines extruding demo cups of soft-serv and yogurt; whole acres of fine china, utensils, baskets, and glassware. Down one alley you discover a whole band of Japanese food marketers banded together to promote the concept of umami; they’ve flown in Fred Sabo, executive chef of the Metropolitan Museum of Art Members’ Dining Room, to demo a Wagyu Beef Tartar. He murmurs into the microphone about the oil he’s infusing with bonito, a dried fish from the tuna family, which he calls “a secret ingredient in my arsenal of flavor.” The oil, plus a black garlic emulsion he’s making in his blender, will be used as a dressing for the minced raw beef, to enhance the savory, meaty, umami taste that lingers on the tongue. When the demo ends, samples are handed out to the audience–naturally, because this tribe is all about feeding.
After an hour on the exhibition floor, I’ve consumed a tasting menu of Wagyu Beef Tartar, Steamed Mussels, Smoked Salmon, Liquid Peanut Butter, and Pulled Pork. The real question here is what NOT to eat, since there are few booths where they’re NOT trying to feed you. There’s even an entire neighborhood of food for Food Phobics and Allergics, where everything they want you to eat is Something-Free (gluten, meat, dairy, fat, taste).
Off the exhibition floor, there’s a whole mini-Food University in progress, but I only have time to get to one session: “What’s Hot, What’s Not, What’s Next?” a talk by menu trends analyst Nancy Kruse. She’s speaking, you have to remember, to an audience of restaurateurs, coaching them about new opportunities and the “creative ideas that keep you guys in business,” so I, as just a civilian Eater, feel like something of a snoop. Did you know, by the way, that research shows that “If you want to tempt the typical American consumer to try something new, you make it sweet.” This explains that explosion of sweet-savory, sweet-smokey, and sweet-spicy on menus everywhere, like Publix Smoked Ancho Cherry BBQ Rotisserie Chicken and Denny’s Caramel Bacon Stuffed French Toast (“A breakfast favorite gets a bacon upgrade with a sweet and savory layer of bacon white chocolate spread between two thick slices of our fabulous French toast. Then we top it off with caramel sauce and diced bacon.”)
Kruse mentioned what she called the “Three Zations” as driving the menus we’ll be seeing more of: “Premiumization, Customization, and Miniaturization.” Miniaturization had an associated sub-trend she identified as “Snackification,” based on consumer surveys showing that 42% of consumers skip or replace at least one meal a day with a snack. Writer Sandra Tsing Loh, in her brilliant analysis of menopause, has described this trend as “Black Swan–ing it until dinner, as apparently so many of us women do (in order to heap our measly 1,500 calories together into one meal a person might actually want to eat)”. But Kruse says that “the degeneration of conventional meal periods makes snacks a huge opportunity for restaurants,” such as Taco Bell’s “Happier Hour” from 2-5 when greasy, calorie- and sodium-packed snack items can be purchased for $1.
“Customization,” she says, has been around in a big way since Burger King launched its “Have It Your Way” campaign in 1974, and has driven the expansion of build-it-yourself fast-food chains like Chipotle. She did note the rise recently of the Chef-as-Artist restaurant in which the customer is pointedly told NOT to meddle with the offerings as offered, as at a quirky Columbus, Ohio restaurant I discovered recently where among the entrees are listings for ”excessive whining” ($35) and “rewriting the menu” ($40).
My favorite Zation of the talk, though, was “Premiumization,” which Kruse defined as “getting something really good for not that much money.” Her PowerPoint slide flashed an enormous image of the Parmesan-Crusted Veal Chop at Romano’s Macaroni Grill. Being unfamiliar both with the item and with the entire existence of this apparently ubiquitous chain, I personally was unable to judge the appeal of 
the chop to my personal sense of premiumization. But the extremely large stranger seated next to me–who looked like he was game to eat pretty much anything the fast-food industry was capable of dishing out–spontaneously leaned over and stage-whispered into my ear: “Don’t EVER get that at Romano’s. I’ve tried it, and it’s godawful!”