Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Cioppino
LISA HUBBARD / GETTY IMAGES ©
California's Regional Specialties
Calculate the distance between your tomato's origin and your fork: chances are it's shorter
than you might think in California. So what are your best bets on local menus? That de-
pends where you are and the time of year; for example, winter can be slim pickings even
in the fertile Central Valley, but ideal for Southern California's citrus.
San Francisco Bay Area
For miners converging here for the Gold Rush, San Francisco offered an unrivaled variety
of novelties and cuisines, from cheap Chinese street food to French fine dining for those
who struck it rich. Today, San Francisco's adventurous eaters support the most restaurants
per capita of any US city - five times more than NYC, ahem - and more than two-dozen
farmers markets.
Some of San Francisco's novelty dishes have had extraordinary staying power, including
ever-popular
cioppino
(seafood stew), chocolate bars invented by the Ghirardelli family,
and sourdough bread, with original Gold Rush-era mother dough still yielding local loaves
with a distinctive tang.
Today no star Bay Area chef's tasting menu would be complete without a few foraged
ingredients - wild chanterelles found beneath California oaks, miner's lettuce from Berke-
ley hillsides or stinging nettles from SF backyards.
