Victor Sack wrote:

> PARIS: The C.I., or Calamari Index, was invented by Jeffrey
> Steingarten, American Vogue's esteemed food critic since 1989, to
> gauge acceptance of tentacles and suckers in the land of sliced white
> bread.
>
> It didn't take long. "For a while every single restaurant started
> having fried calamari as a first course," Steingarten said from New
> York. "Now it's such a cliché you don't see it anymore."

I've read that in the 1950s, bratwurst turned out to be too exotic for
the Twin Cities.

At a German festival.

Things have changed.

However: I don't consider a food fully accepted till it gets outside
the gourmet category. Espresso reached that point when it became
common for gas stations (at least in the Twin Cities) to offer "Coffee
and Espresso." The University of Minnesota campus now has at least one
vending machine with Seattle-style coffees. Bagels have gone from being
an exotic food in much of the US to being a different form of sliced
white bread.

I've not yet seen calimari in, for example, Burger King.

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