Earlier this year, Brendan Francis Newnam, co-host of American Public Media's Dinner Party Download podcast, predicted that one of the big food trends of 2010 would be food trends, as "more and more people get into the business of predicting what is going to be popular in food." It seems fair to say, as I wade through a sea of year-end food trend listage, that this is one prediction that has come true.

Newnam then went on to interview Kara Nielson, a food trendologist with the Center for Culinary Development, who shared some insights into the methodology of trendology as she explained her prediction that coconut is going to be big in 2011: