The Year in Food 2007

Shut Up and Give Me an Imported Chocolate Bar!

Yeah, we’ve read the glowing memoirs about the 100-mile diet. We’ve rhapsodized over the taste of ripe locally grown tomatoes. And you know what? Sometimes we still just want to eat strawberries in January. As the locavore trend continues to grab headlines, some people are beginning to moan about the elitism of it all. New York magazine’s Adam Platt considered life without Tuscan truffles or Nebraska prime rib in a rant against foodie correctness and decided to stick his head in a box of Cheese Nips. In a New York Times op-ed, James McWilliams suggested that locally grown foods can sometimes have an even bigger carbon footprint than imported ones, prompting an impassioned defense over at environmentally minded Grist. The rest of the world continued to calmly slice Guatemalan bananas onto its oatmeal. —Emily Matchar