Nevertheless, all have achieved a similar ubiquity in recent years, becoming dinner party musts, restaurants staples or - in the case of the cronut - the subject of countless half-baked imitations.
We might think of taste as individual - but the way we fall for the same thing at the same time suggests it's anything but. Why does this happen? And were do these trends come from?
"Marketing plays a tremendous role," says the Canadian food writer David Sax, author of the new book, The Tastemakers: Why We're Crazy For Cupcakes But Fed Up With Fondue.
"Industry bodies get chefs to use an ingredient and they'll commission studies into health benefits. Then it's featured in the press."
Much of Kale's success is down to Oberon Sinclair, who runs the New York creative PR agency My Young Auntie. Two years ago, Sinclair was hired by the American Kale Association. Exceptionally well-connected, with a background in fashion and music, she targeted New York's coolest eateries, begging chefs to serve the little-known vegetable. Before long, it was appearing on menus at Balthazar, the Fat Radish, Babbo and Bar Pitti.
In early 2013, the New York Times hailed kale's "veggie chic".
The 70s trend of cheese fondue. Photo / Thinkstock
"Whether at big-ticket galas or intimate dinners, the wintry vegetable has popped up at functions throughout the city," it said. Sinclair ordered a line of sweatshirts and bags from textile designers; kale-inspired fashion was born.
If trends can be co-ordinated like this, can anything become the next craze? Would Sinclair have succeeded with turnips?
"No," she says, firmly. She believes kale worked because it offers something tasty but wholesome at a time when diners are more health-conscious than ever.
"A good trend answers a need," Sax says. "It'll pick up on something in greater culture." The progress to ubiquity occurs when the mainstream catches on. Supermarkets and restaurants send staff on fact-finding missions to culinary hotspots - New York, Tokyo, Berlin - to see what the hip eateries are serving.
British retailer Marks & Spencer makes 20 such trips a year, as well as scouring London restaurants and paying attention to the latest diet and health advice. New products can be dreamed up as much as 18 months in advance.
"We all eat out - and not just for the day job," Cass Suddes, one of the store's trend hunters, says. "We're exposed to new ideas 24/7."
An entire industry has developed around predicting food fashions.
"Retailers are investing more time and resources in keeping on top of trends," says Charles Banks, co-founder of the global forecasting agency The Food People.
"The cost of getting it wrong is high."
He's provided reports for most major retailers in Britain as well as restaurant chains and contract caterers. "We do everything from compiling data on menu combinations to travelling overseas - for instance, South Korea and Japan are very advanced with food technology adoption." Representatives from the hospitality sector congregate to discuss the Next Big Thing at conferences around the world.
The cronut. Photo / Thinkstock
In the US, the National Restaurant Association surveys 1300 chefs annually to see what they're cooking, using the answers to make predictions. Not all crazes can be anticipated, however.
"Thanks to social media, if someone makes something delicious and people talk about it, it can spread around the world in weeks," Sax says.
The cronut became a word-of-mouth hit after pastry chef Dominique Ansel created the croissant-doughnut hybrid last May.
Aside from inviting a few friends in the media to taste it, there was no PR campaign.
But before long, queues were forming outside his New York bakery. Getting your hands on a cronut became worth boasting about on Twitter, or capturing on Instagram - much to Ansel's bemusement.
"I'm not quite sure anyone can properly explain it," he says. "It went viral overnight." Since Ansel has trademarked the cronut name, imitators have made do with their own portmanteaus - droissants, crodoughs, even the Greggsnut. A year on, queues still form outside Ansel's bakery but the frenzy is no longer what it was. Eventually, cronut-mania will pass.
The fondue is further along the trajectory. The 70s staple has been demode for decades. But what pushes a food from dish-of-the-day to culinary has-been?
Sax offers some interesting cultural theories for the fondue's decline. The 60s' and 70s' communal ethos - peace, love, and a shared pot of cheese - faded. People were dining out more. And in the early years of the HIV/Aids epidemic, when the public was still largely uneducated on the realities of infection, sharing food was rejected out of fear.
Other times, a trend fizzles simply because its novelty has worn off. Today's cronut customers will still enjoy the same flaky pastry, the same sugar rush, as they would six months ago. They just won't have the sweet sensation of being the first to do so.
As Sax puts it: "Food trends aren't just about taste - we're eating to entertain ourselves and be part of the zeitgeist."
Then, of course, there are the food-fads-that-never-were. While they might have made a few fashionable appearances on menus, micro-desserts, bacon sweets and "pie pops" - pies on sticks - are among several recently vaunted crazes never to have hit the big time. Why not?
Black rice is expected to be big in 2015. Photo / Getty Images
"Fundamentally, those are one-hit wonders," Sax says. "They're quirky and cute but don't deliver on a need. You'll try them once and move on."
He's right - though surely part of this is hard luck. After all, is a pie on a stick that much more random than a croissant-doughnut hybrid? As for what's next on the horizon, trends forecasts in January included gluten-free dining and haute vegetarian food, both of which have taken off.
Sales of gluten-free food at British pubs and restaurants are up 22 per cent on last year; veg-centric dining has become cool. Other predicted hits - fried insects and spam chips - are faring less well. Fried chocolate chicken is the latest fad in the US, with a new restaurant in LA serving the unlikely offering on its menu alongside white chocolate mashed potatoes and duck fat fries with chocolate seasoning.
And for 2015? Suddes is expecting more interest in the nutty grain, freekeh. And Sax is putting his money on black rice: "White has become a staple, but there are lots of people cultivating different strands. I think we'll see it on high-end menus and then it'll work its way out."
Black rice is the new black? You heard it here first.
Food trends: hit or miss?
The fondue. 70s food gets a bad rap - but the fondue is due for a revival. Who doesn't like bread dipped in melted cheese? Come to think of it, vol-au-vents, sausages on sticks and olives are pretty good too ...
The panini. The lunch-to-be-seen-with in the 90s. At its worst, two slices of just-toasted bread and some filling, its coffee-shop incarnation was a long way from the Italian original.
The cupcake. To some, the jewel-coloured cakes of the noughties were a symbol of sexy, independent womanhood. To others, they were infantalising, overly sweet and too small by half.
Restaurant small plates. Delightful if you know exactly how much to order and there are just two of you. A nightmare in a crowd - particularly when the chips arrive 30 minutes before everything else.
- Independent
