It's menu mania!

Avid foodies and award-winning culinary authors Andrew Dornenburg and Karen Page admit that not everyone shares their passion for reading restaurant menus.

“We do have friends who think things get taken a bit too far,” says the husband-and-wife team, whose latest book is “The Food Lover’s Guide to Wine.”

Among their pals’ pet peeves: “too many details about the source of the ingredients or how they’re prepared, when they really don’t care.”

“There are so many different ways that people are describing things. There’s not just first courses, entrees and desserts anymore — it’s much more complicated than that,” says Page.

“Because we embrace what’s new and different, it doesn’t bother us so much. But we can see how it would drive somebody who didn’t care so much about food up the wall — ‘What is this menu and how do I place my order?’ ”

Indeed, increasingly wordy and smug restaurant menus mean diners are now inundated with terms such as “artisanal,” “locally sourced” and “house-made.”

These days, it’s not just cute DIY eateries that are the offenders. At the new Manhattan outpost of bakery chain Panera, you’ll find “hand-crafted, artisan bread.” Chipotle serves “food with integrity.” And at Applebee’s, you can indulge in “a juicy, tender steak jazzed up with Cajun spices.”

For the love of God, can we just eat already?

“The [terms] that have become most universal and overused — and hence the least valuable — are ones that relate to the farm-to-table movement,” says Time magazine food columnist Josh Ozersky.

Former buzzwords such as “free range,” “pesto” and “raspberry vinegar” have been supplanted by lingo such as “craft,” “heirloom” and “hand-cut” — all suggesting a rustic, back-to-the-land quality.

“Everyone’s trying to get back to basics,” explains Candy Argondizza, culinary director at SoHo’s International Culinary Center. “People want to know what they’re eating, and it’s the chef’s responsibility to address these issues. But it’s got to be there for a reason.”

In other words, lose the “crisp bacon’’ and “creamy polenta” and just cook it properly, thank you very much.

Perhaps the most useless term of all is “artisanal.” “ ‘Artisanal’ is so overused,” concedes Argondizza. “It’s like ‘organic.’ There are really no guidelines.”

“[‘Artisanal’] jumped the shark when Domino’s announced they were going to serve artisanal pizza,” says Ozersky. “That caused a collective groan from the country’s twee bistros.”

So what are restaurants thinking when they use these terms?

According to Brian Wansink, professor at the Dyson School of Applied Economics and Management at Cornell University, menu descriptors relate to four categories: the senses (“creamy,” “crisp”), location (“Vermont sea-salt butter”), nostalgia (“grandma’s meatballs”) and brand (“Niman Ranch pork”).

And these adjectives — even if they induce eye rolls in jaded New Yorkers — are very powerful. In studies, Wansink has shown that adding a couple descriptors to a menu item boosted its sales by 27 percent.

“It didn’t matter how ridiculous these [labels] were,” says Wansink. In one study, a control group received chocolate cake, while another group indulged in the same dish — this one dubbed Belgium Black Forest Double Chocolate Cake.

“Sales went up, taste ratings went up, ratings of the restaurant went up. It didn’t matter that the Black Forest isn’t even in Belgium.”

While it’s usually pretentious menu terms that grate on the customer, even a minimalist approach can be controversial. In 2010, four-star Eleven Madison Park sparked chatter when it changed its menu, offering customers a simple grid listing one-word items like “beef” and “pork” tailored to their tastes.

Then there’s the increasingly common practice of name-dropping lists of “purveyors” (i.e., suppliers).

“As a diner who eats out a lot, the more language I see about farmers and farms [on a menu], the more nervous I get,” says Ozersky. “I tend to feel it’s a form of overcompensation, like a guy who tells you what an incredible sex machine he is.”

“I would love to see some guy boast, ‘All of my ingredients are from C-Town.’ That would impress me. If it was good, that would really be an unheard-of accomplishment.”

A handy glossary for the hungry, tired and befuddled

* artisanal: “Not made by a big corporation, often refers to foods and beverages made in smaller quantities,” explain authors Andrew Dornenburg and Karen Page. Frequently connotes something of Brooklyn or Portland, Ore., origin, though some experts argue the term has been rendered meaningless.

* bespoke: “A hoity-toity term for handmade,” says ICC’s Candy Argondizza. Often refers to cocktails specifically tailored to a customer’s tastes. But as Time’s Josh Ozersky points out: “Just because extra care is taken doesn’t necessarily make it better. Unless the guy who’s making it is a great bartender, it could be the mixology equivalent of getting your hair cut at barber college.”

* black label: “Refers to a special blend of beef used when making hamburgers, which was popularized by Minetta Tavern’s black-label burger (far left) made with Pat LaFrieda meats — but Wendy’s has since jumped on the black-label bandwagon,” say Dornenburg and Page.

* biodynamic wine: “A step beyond organic [with] very specific guidelines,” note Dornenburg and Page. The winemaking process may involve lunar cycles and burying cow horns packed with dung. We’re actually not kidding.

* degustation menu: Synonymous with a tasting menu. “You’re putting yourself into the chef’s — and, if you desire, the sommelier’s — hands to determine the menu, with a possible choice of a certain number of courses,” explain Dornenburg and Page.

* foraging: “It conveys the idea of this noble savage wandering in the forest,” Ozersky says of the movement pioneered by chef René Redzepi of Copenhagen’s Noma restaurant. “It does have legitimacy in high-level restaurants. But if you’re eating in Brooklyn, the last thing you may want is something growing in the backyard.”

* grass-fed: “Refers to cattle fed only grass and not corn, which is not part of its natural diet — the beef tends to be leaner and more flavorful,” say Dornenburg and Page. But Ozersky, who finds totally grass-fed beef “leathery,” argues that “all cows eat some grass. It’s a question of whether it’s finished with corn and grain.”

* heirloom: No, not your grandmother’s pearls, but veggies bred for flavor, not appearance. “Their beauty is their imperfection,” notes Argondizza. “Heirloom and [in the case of animals] heritage practices preserve agricultural variety and protect biodiversity,” add Dornenburg and Page.

* house-made: “The new homemade,” say Dornenburg and Page. Ubiquitous, yes, but a meaningful, verifiable term. “It says there are craftsmen in the kitchen — that there’s a lot of care taken,” says Argondizza. The term often modifies nouns such as “charcuterie” and “burrata.”

* line-caught: “Suggests it’s caught by a fisherman, not dredged up by evil, unsustainable methods,” explains Ozersky.

* locally sourced: “Cooking with ingredients available locally — whether within 100 miles or another limited radius,” say Dornenburg and Page. But not everyone is completely sold: “I’d rather have fresh cauliflower from a good produce store like Dean & Deluca then cauliflower from some farm that’s a week old,” says Ozersky.

* market table: “This is the same as ‘farm-to-table.’ It means you’re buying directly from the farm and cutting out the middle man,” says Argondizza. “That’s a big statement.”

* wood-roasted: “It lets the public know, ‘We have a wood-burning oven. Our food is going to have a rustic, roasted flavor,’ ” says Argondizza. A more precise term than the more meaningless and marketing-driven “fire-roasted.” — Carla Spartos