CHICHARRONES The humble pork rind showed up in high-end company in 2012, in big crisp-fried sheets that showed off the extraordinary texture that can be achieved when fat meets fat. At Empellón Cocina, in the East Village, Alex Stupak took the classic Mexican taco filling of chicharrón and salsa verde, eliminated the tortilla and came up with an unforgettable bar snack. And it isn’t just pork: shards of Southern-fried chicken skin are a starter at Husk, in Charleston, S.C., and crisp fish skin made an amuse-bouche at Frej, in Brooklyn. Chicharrones were also spotted at Noble Sandwiches (Austin), Seersucker (Brooklyn) and the disturbingly named Abattoir (Atlanta).

RAW WINTER VEGETABLES Since 2011, when American chefs embarked on our national kale salad experiment, any vegetable, no matter how forbidding or indigestible, has become fair game for raw eating. No one has done more to promote the Martian-looking kohlrabi than the Chicago chef Stephanie Izard, who has made kohlrabi salad a seasonless standard at Girl & the Goat. Elsewhere, offerings include a course of impaled baby radishes, carrots, turnips and fennel from the gardens at Blue Hill at Stone Barns, in Pocantico Hills, N.Y. In Houston, Justin Yu’s minimalist plate of raw turnip and radish was one of the dishes that prompted an Internet uprising against his new restaurant Oxheart.

BARREL-AGED HOT SAUCE Hugh Acheson’s Empire State South, in Atlanta, is one of many Southern restaurants that set the national agenda this year. Grits and grains were explored; the potential uses of pimento cheese were mastered (straws, puffs, foam); country ham was added to every vegetable. Cutting through it all is a new generation of full-flavored hot sauces; Mr. Acheson’s is aged in oak barrels for sweet and fiery complexity. Home-brewed hot sauce is aged in discarded whiskey barrels at Vesta Dipping Grill, in Denver, and at Magnolia Pub and Brewery, in San Francisco, the hot sauce is part of the larger craft-brew program.