An anguished tweet showed up in my timeline the other day said Trader Joe’s is no longer stocking poutine. Could poutine’s hipster star be fading?

Well, maybe not hipster. If I know about it, it’s not hipster any more. I prefer to say a food has been gentrified.

Many of the same rules apply in both neighborhood and food gentrification.

Something that is already upscale can’t be gentrified. This is why Park Slope can be but the Upper West Side can’t. Chicken and waffles can, but lamb chops can’t.

In addition, the dish or neighborhood has to be viewed as “authentic.” Or at least seem authentic when when presented with a [faux historical logo][9]. This is known in academic circles as the Old Crow Medicine Show Effect. For instance, the O.C.M.S.E. allows a charcuterie or a barbershop to be easily gentrified, but not video game store or a T.J. Maxx.

Although, in neighborhoods as in food, that “authenticity” needs to be chased away before the affluent hipsters can enjoy it safely while reveling in its amazing authenticity.

And third, food can only be gentrified if every incremental step of its production, preparation and consumption can be neurotically, obsessively fixated over. Beer, coffee and burgers have all been overtaken by this urge.

Right now, somewhere in America, a chef is shaving truffles over cave-aged gruyere atop a kobe beef patty simmered in squid ink and served with a side of rosemary duck fat fries.

When you order a beer you have to decide between and IPA with a flavor of a “hint of oaken timbers from Old Ironsides” or a trappist ale with “a smokey finish of a papal coronation.” Although sometimes existing brands get remade. It used to be that you drank PBR because you had shit taste in beer; now it’s a statement.

But now with poutine potentially on the wane, where does that leave us? Something has to take its place. Here are some ideas about what the next food fad could be:

###Lutefisk

Cod soaked in lye certainly has authenticity going for it. Also it has a little bit of “food you only eat on dare” vibe, which might also appeal to hipsters who generally prefer to keep their favorite items out of the mainstream.

But it can’t be made upscale easily. Is artisanal, hand-milled organic lye a thing? Also, we probably don’t want to get our next food fad from Minnesota. Poutine is from Canada, but Quebec is “the cool part of Canada.”

###Marmite

Marmite is old-timey British, so you can’t get more authentic than that. And like lutefisk, it’s something you trick younger siblings into eating while you laugh at the faces they make.

But it also has the potential to be a food that an entire a scene could be built around. Hipsters could sit in pubs wearing bowler hats while enjoying with some “authentic” British food like boiled sheep’s pancreas and sipping cocktails made from dry sherry and Bovril.

Unfortunately Marmite is the wrong kind of authentic. We Colonials still like to think of the Brits as superior to us. It’s why we like Simon Cowell to tell us we can’t sing or Gordon Ramsay to yell at us about our cooking.

###Cincinnati style-chilli

For those not in the know, Cincinnati style is made from classic chili ingredients – minus beans and any of the good spices – overcooked into watery glop and served over pasta.

It comes with a couple of downsides. It’s simple, so it can’t really be fussed over into endless variations, although the fact it can be made gluten free is certainly a bonus.

Also, it wasn’t designed to taste good so much as to look the same on a plate as when it’s vomited up by someone who had one too many at a Reds doubleheader.

###Garbage Plate

I’ve seen a Rochester, NY, resident become enraged over denigration of this local delicacy, so we get bravery points for proposing it. It’s served at Nick Tahou Hots, a restaurant that is a culinary house of horrors comparable to Mrs. Lovett’s pie shop.

The dish features meat – pulled pork, hamburger, sausage, etc – served with home fries, baked beans and macaroni salad heaped on flimsy paper plate. Diners then stir it all together and eat it blank-eyed while wondering what self-hatred has brought them to this dark reckoning.

On the one hand, hipsters might not want to eat something that one might feed a dog after cleaning up after a picnic. Then again, a Garbage Plate would lend itself to endless hipster variations, such as a plate of a kale salad, quinoa, roasted butternut squash and topped with tiki marsala.

I, of course, can only offer suggestions for food gentrification. Hipsters will have to take the ball and run with it.