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Is it just me, or are rabbit-centered dishes breeding faster these days than their main ingredient?

A few months ago, Garrett McCord – aboard his most-excellent foodblog, Vanilla Garlic – wrote about his Rockstar Ingredient Theory. In 2007, it was “all about tea being used in food.” His theory for 2008? Rhubarb. You might even argue that the same phenomenon is behind cupcakes giving way to yogurt as a fad.

It’s with this frame of reference that I’ve been dabbling in trendwatching lately, and the trend I’m seeing: Rabbit. It started a couple of weeks ago, when Kelly arrived home from work and asked me, “Have you ever eaten rabbit before?” She proceeded to share a story about a co-worker who’d raved about it earlier in the day.

A few days later, as Kelly and I trolled Park Avenue in search of a dinner venue, we noticed a rabbit-themed special on one restaurant’s sidewalk chalkboard. And just this week, I’ve seen rabbit recipes among the headlines at The Food Network‘s web site, and appearing in favorite food blogs!

Maybe rabbit-centered dishes have always swirled around me, and simply escaped my attention. Maybe the concept of “rabbit stew” seems so much like the provincial stuff of Peter Cottontail – among my favorite children’s books as a young’un – that the idea always just bounced off me as fictional. Or maybe, perhaps, the Fall food fashion fad for 2008 is indeed turning out to be rabbit! In any case, it might be high time to give it a try…