Yeah, I've eaten Ethiopian food and liked it, but unless I've been completely out of the loop, Ethiopian food is not "an American fascination".

Fake trends are the easiest hooks for clickbait these days, fueled by FOMO.

Within the US, of the cities I've lived in (NYC, DC, Philly, Pittsburgh, Chicago, SF), it's thoroughly mainstream in DC, and that's it. In NYC, Ethiopian Food is something I can get if I want it. In DC, everyone I knew ate Ethiopian food semi-regularly and many have their favorite hole in the wall that nobody else had been to.

At least per https://www.migrationpolicy.org/article/beyond-regional-circ... -- the location of Ethiopian-Americans is: "If the descendants of Ethiopian-born migrants (the second generation and up) are included, the estimates range upwards of 460,000 in the United States (of which approximately 350,000 are in Washington, DC; 96,000 in Los Angeles; and 10,000 in New York)."