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Edited on Sat Jan-07-06 02:17 AM by Zinfandel
I received an excellent book as a holiday gift, titled; San Francisco Authentic Recipes Celebrating the Foods of the World (Williams-Sonoma) copyright 2005.
What I love about the book is not so much the recipes, (and, yes, the recipes are truly, very good)! But.... the text, written by a woman named Janet Fletcher. The way she writes about the “Culinary History” of SF and the trends, even how politics help shape SF culinary taste…for example; (I typed out each word from the book, it's not a “paste” job, so please, do read…I know you will enjoy it)
“No other American city can rival San Francisco’s reputation as a serious food town. Its residents will stand in line for a favorite bread, drive across town for the best coffee beans, and stretch their budget to buy locally raised grass-fed beef and organic, free-range poultry.
The contemporary Bay Area food scene has so much influence nationwide that it can be hard to discern what is truly unique about it. The region is too widely watched and imitated to keep anything to itself for long. But although chefs around the country have embraced many tenets of Northern California cuisine—freshness, seasonality, and simplicity among them—one could argue that Bay Area cooks are still the most passionate practitioners. An allegiance to market-based cooking may be widespread now, but the Bay Area remains the mother church, as the wealth of local farmers markets and other specialty outlets illustrates.
A taste for simplicity—Diners elsewhere may fall for highly embellished food, towering architectural presentations, or elaborate and fussy garnishes, but Bay Area chefs and diners have simpler tastes. Flavor matters more than any form on local restaurants plates, and customers are not seduced by food that looks better that it tastes. Complex sauces have lost favor with Bay Area kitchens, replaced by techniques, such as searing and braising that heighten intrinsic flavors. A split-roasted organic chicken rubbed with herbs, or an impeccably fresh fillet of grilled halibut drizzled with Meyer lemon vinaigrette appeals to local tastes more than flashier dishes.
A concern for sustainability—The Bay Area reputation for environmentalism and left-leaning politics extends to its local food choices. Many chefs and consumers seek out organic produce, avoid seafood reported to be over-fished, and buy only from meat and poultry suppliers that practice humane and animal husbandry. Although such activist shoppers are surely in the minority, they have had a pronounced impact on local food options. Many Bay Area supermarkets give substantial space to organic produce and sell naturally raised pork and organic chicken. A few markets, like some local restaurants, offer the more environmentally friendly grass-fed beef. In growing numbers, Bay Area chefs and consumers see eating as a political act.
The Bay Area’s many vegan, vegetarians, and almost vegetarians shape the menus at local restaurants and food shops. Most restaurants offer at least one meatless main course and willingly accommodate special request from meat avoiders.
So often in the vanguard, Bay Area diners have also helped popularize one of the more curious modern day culinary movements: the art of not cooking. Raw food, believed to be more healthful than cooked food, has many adherents in the Bay Area, and a critically acclaimed vegetarian restaurant, Roxanne’s in Larkspur, (Marin County), is devoted to that philosophy."
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“Ernie’s, San Francisco’s most elegant restaurant for decades, also dates from the 1930s. So does Trader Vic’s, a Polynesian-themed establishment opened in Oakland in 1936 by South Seas traveler Trader Vic Bergeron. The canny restaurateur, who introduced the mai tai and other Polynesian-styled drinks that were garnished with paper umbrellas, had so many San Francisco customers that he opened another Trader Vic’s, in the city in 1951. For many years, the Captain’s Cabin at Trader Vic’s was San Francisco society’s private dinning room. Both Ernie’s and Trader Vic’s closed in the 1990s, victims of changing tastes.
Rene Verdon, the White House chef for John and Jacqueline Kennedy, moved to San Francisco soon after the president’s death, opened Le Trianon and ushered in a fashion for French food. Le Trianon, La Bourgogne, Ernie’s and Fleur de Lys, all luxe establishments, were the epitome of fine San Francisco dinning in the 1970’s.
In 1971, a young American woman introduced the Bay Area to a different side of French cooking. At Chez Panisse, Alice Water’s revolutionary Berkeley restaurant, simplicity and flavor triumphed over pomp and ceremony. Water’s obsession with good ingredients and seasonality remains hallmarks of Bay Area cooking today."
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