Amid the nostalgia-fest that is Christmas, news has broken that sherry – which many people will forever associate with that disgusting sweet liquor they sipped as a child from auntie's glass when no one was looking – is suddenly terribly fashionable and selling like hot cakes. But to the sophisticates among you, this will be no revelation. In fact British appreciation of pale, dry sherries, which are nothing like the stuff granny served in dainty, cut-glass schooners, has been bubbling up for a decade, largely thanks to the rise in very good tapas restaurants.

Wednesday's report points out that, along with sales going through the roof (M&S's figures are already up a third on last year's), specialist sherry bars are now popular: 35 opened in London alone over the past three years. This isn't a bunch of students ironically knocking back a "blue-rinse" tipple – it's young professionals sampling fine sherries in elegant wine glasses, which allow drinkers to appreciate the camomile and coastal aromas of their manzanilla.

What a turn-around – it isn't that long ago that no one would have touched sherry with a barge pole, and few British people still alive could understand why anyone had ever liked it. But old friends from the world of food and drink have a habit of returning. When I was growing up, cheese fondues were the height of Abigail's Party naff, and would have been as unspeakable as wearing flared trousers. But by the time I was at university in the 1990s, and my generation started cooking for friends, cheese fondue sets became a hilarious way to recreate the gatherings we witnessed from behind the banisters, as children of the 1970s. Flares were back, too.

Food revivals can be purely nostalgic, as in sherbet Dip Dabs and scotch eggs. This is about comfort food, nursery food, engaging with cultural traditions and a way to get a taste of a time when we think life was simpler and more wholesome. It is sometimes about being kitsch, too. But even in these globalised times, our food fashions are deeply culturally driven.

Food can stir up strong memories and feelings, all of which heightens our culinary nostalgia. Look at how the recession triggered a sepia blitz-spirit, grow-your-own-spuds trend. I'm the first to pontificate about how home-grown produce tastes better than anything else, but I am under no illusion that having a vegetable patch – and limited gardening expertise – is going to save money. But hard times especially bring out a desire for good, old-fashioned stuff that makes us feel secure, like baking, pinnies and beef dripping (the latter is on the menu at Story, which is considered to be one of London's hot new restaurants).

And then there's the underdog repackaged and given a new lease of life, like sherry. Popcorn is another. I blame Marcus Wareing's 2009 cookbook, wistfully titled Nutmeg and Custard, which contained no less than 13 popcorn recipes. It wasn't that popcorn was eschewed like sherry, but it was starting to feel a bit retro. Then kapow, all of a sudden it was the new canape. Now chefs are ruining perfectly good dishes with the stuff on a daily basis. Meanwhile, snack aisles in shops are full of tastefully packaged "premium" popcorn in inappropriate flavours like cheese and chive. It's as though a popcorn machine was hit by gamma rays and can't stop churning out bizarre varieties.

Anyhow, it's all about sherry this Christmas. Next year, make mine a Tia Maria.