Serious Eats - seriouseats.com

Courtesy of Fuchsia Dunlop: '...the names “thousand-year-old egg” and “century egg” are foreign inventions.' (http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/4ac4570e-ef32-11db-a64e-000b5df10621.html#axzz1SCHZaJNo)

Those are called "hanetsuki" (winged) gyoza. They are tricky to make well, but I guess they are starting to catch on in America.

What are your criteria for "ingredient of the year"?

Googling "brussels sprouts" within http://www.seriouseats.com/2009 returns 92 results, whereas "bacon" returns 598.

“None of the food journalism that has come out of this offal / "whole animal" trend has yet convinced me that there is some little bit of meat or tendon or organ or whatever that is so much more delicious than, say, a steak, that it is worth all the trouble.”

This just struck me as a somewhat strange thing to say... The way I see it, a steak and a tendon/organ/etc. have pretty different flavors and uses so I'm not quite sure you can make the comparison. It would be like saying "paprika tastes better than cinnamon, so I don't use cinnamon."

Also, can't believe no one's brought this up yet, but as a matter of respect and practicality, we sorta have an obligation to eat the "nasty bits." Farming livestock is a huge drain on the environment and taking a creature's life isn't insignificant; using the whole animal makes it worth it (to some degree, anyway).