This blog was not exactly iconoclastic in covering the year's issues in food; the two that dominated were the global financial crisis and the changing climate affecting the food that we eat. The irony that the blog about "what the world eats" has once again come to comment on what the world isn't eating and probably shouldn't be eating does not escape me.

As much as the GFC gave a slim pretense to speak of the tax on alcopops and the Federal budget and recession eating, I had a love of mince and hoarding leftovers well before this crisis came into full swing. The financial crisis was just the justification that I needed to continue acting like a Depression Era home cook by preserving my own beetroot in vinegar and gardening to beat the recession. Even if growing your own vegetables was not the most economically rational act for an otherwise fully employed person to do, the dividends are delicious.

I bought a garden whose previous owner was a plum-obsessed Eastern European man, it survived the winter doldrums and my summer paranoia to produce fruits and vegetables that are tastier than they are economical. I examined the feasibility of mulching a futon which had very little to do with economics. As far as I am aware, there is no open market for futon innards. My experience to date is that the woolen futon filling does mulch, is not the best weed suppressant, but makes the backyard appear as if you have done something unspeakable and violent with a sheep.

Much like the Copenhagen climate change conference, the global financial situation got more play than the climate. I did mention that reducing the amount of meat that you eat has more impact on lowering your carbon footprint than eating local food. Global warming is already changing fish migration and warmer oceans will shift populations of fish. Also, its been a very bad year to be a tuna.

This year's media-hyped pandemic got a mention in the link between the bacon supply and swine flu. This year's most popular celebrity death opened the opportunity to memorialise the Michael Jackson to whom I have more in common.

In home cooking, I cooked ice cream  (twice, if you count the parsnip ice cream and also pointed out that you can make it in a ziploc bag), American pork ribs , sindhi biryani from Pakistan, roast pork belly, satay, mussels cooked in beer, barbecue sauce from unpopular loquats and chow mein. The only promise that I made in the previous year - to cook more vegetarian - was only fulfilled in the most partial way that I could.

So any food predictions for 2010?