This has been a banner year for food lovers. Ever more bizarre victuals found their way to specialty grocery stores, and a frenzy of new restaurants swept across the land. The cooking of the Southwest began to eclipse Cajun fare as our high-status regional cuisine--small wonder, when the gumbos, jambalayas and red beans of Louisiana became overworked into clichés. Its most overrated specialty, blackened redfish, is a culinary travesty. Scorched spices encrust the fish and mask its delicate flavor. There were contradictions, too, as Americans pumped iron to stay thin, then tried to maintain status by eating In. This was also...
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