Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
California Cuisine: Then & Now
'Let the ingredients speak for themselves!' is the rallying cry of California cuisine. With
fruit, vegetables, seafood and meats this fresh, heavy French sauces and fussy molecular-
gastronomy foams aren't required to make meals memorable. That said, California's food
fixations are easily exaggerated: not every Californian demands grass-fed burgers with
heirloom tomato ketchup.
Even so, when New York chefs David Chang and Anthony Bourdain mocked California
cuisine as merely putting an organic fig on a plate, Californian chefs turned the tables, say-
ing that New York needs to get out more often and actually try some Mission figs - one of
hundreds of heirloom varietals preserved or developed by California horticulturalists and
farmers since the late 18th century.
California's 20th-Century Food Revolution
Seasonal, locavarian eating has become mainstream, but California started the movement
more than 40 years ago. As the turbulent 1960s wound down, many disillusioned idealists
concluded that the revolution was not about to be delivered on a platter, yet California's pi-
oneering organic farmers weren't about to give up.
In 1971, Alice Waters opened her now legendary restaurant
Chez Panisse
in a converted
house in Berkeley with the then-radical notion of making the most of California's season-
al, all-natural, sustainably produced food. Waters combined French flourishes with Cali-
fornia's natural bounty, and diners tasted the difference.
Today Waters' credo of organic, seasonal, sustainably sourced and locally grown in-
gredients aligns perfectly with the worldwide Slow Food movement. In California today
farmers markets are popular weekly gathering places for local communities, where artisan-
al producers of foodstuffs, such as honey and cheese, and local farmers come to sell their
best, often trucking it in themselves from the fields.
Global Fusion Cooking
Beyond its exceptionally fertile farmland, California has another culinary advantage: an
experimental attitude toward food that dates from its Wild West days. Most Gold Rush
miners were men not accustomed to cooking for themselves, which resulted in such
