Californian Cuisine

[edwardsboi]

When we talk about regional cuisine for this country, I have some idea what Southern cooking is, what Southwestern cooking is, etc.. But, I have no idea what California cuisine is- what characteristics does it have or what common ingredients does it uses. When you think of New England cuisine, you think of something like the clambake. Or, with Southern food, you think of something like fried chicken. But, what's the quetinsial Californian dish. I've read that Alice Waters and Wolfgang Puck are leaders of Californian Cuisine, but I don't see what unites their style of cooking.

[AAQuesada]

I am sure you'll get some great answers. For me California cuisine is greatly influenced by the early influence of the Spanish, Italian immigrants you can see the with Mediterranean ingredients here (oranges, olives, sage). As well as the influence of early immigration of Chinese and Japanese. Of course the food of mexico, chile, tortillas, Avocado ect..

California cuisine is a continuing mix of ethnic influences, the use of fresh veggies and fruits, a culture of high heat grilling.

Encarnacion's Kitchen is an interesting book on early california cuisine...

http://www.ucpress.edu/ebook.php?isbn=9780520939332

[djyee100]

You've asked a good question, but I certainly don't have a definitive answer. To me Californian cuisine is

- distinctly Mediterranean, with herbs, fruits and vegs from the Mediterranean climate. Olive oil rather than butter. Herbs like basil, marjoram, oregano, dill, & mint. Tomatoes, zucchini, eggplant, fennel. Lemons & oranges. Anchovies, olives, capers. Garlic!!

- outdoorsy and informal, generally, especially with the emphasis on grilling. Even the food served at the elite restaurants looks like it could be eaten on the patio.

- more herbaceous and bitter in flavor than the other American regional cuisines, because of all the fresh produce in it; more tart because of all the wine we drink.

- tends to come across as direct and strong-flavored, rather than subtle, complex, or nuanced. Compare with French haute cuisine, for example.

- can have an attitude that "anything goes," with both good and uh, not so good, results. E.g., California pizza.

A cook at one of the well-known restaurants around here once said that ideally, the food should look like it fell from the garden onto the plate. She rolled her eyes when she said that, because all that natural beauty and flavor require superb ingredients and, believe it or not, effort.

I think Joanne Weir presents California cooking well in her Wine Country cookbooks. (Northern Calif cuisine anyway. Maybe I shouldn't speak for Southern Calif.) I own More Cooking in the Wine Country, & I 've cooked a bunch of recipes from it, with good results. Another cookbook, Wine Country Cooking, has a preview on Googlebooks, if you would like a better idea of California cuisine:

http://books.google.com/books?id=zsE4R2CGq9sC&printsec=frontcover&dq=joanne+weir&cd=3#v=onepage&q=&f=false

[yasuofenix]

I'd like to know what people say are the differences between Northern & Southern California cuisine. I'm from NYC, but use to spend my summers as a kid living with my cousins in Cupertino in South Bay. We use to take trips to Napa and San Francisco. So I am somewhat familiar with the food there. I took it to be like what people say, but I remember more Asian influence. Maybe only in Cupertino & San Jose? They use to have a sizable Japanese-American group.

And is California Pizza Kitchen really from there?

The other thing I noticed is most Californians I've met have never had a fig, blood orange, cavolo nero, and others. This includes my girlfriend sadly who is from Southern California. She never had a fig until she came to NYC to study at FCI. Why is this the case? Do most produce grown in California get shipped out?

I'll be moving to Southern California soon so any insight helps me tremendously, thanks.

[Shel_B]

The other thing I noticed is most Californians I've met have never had a fig ...

You've met the wrong Californians. California grows a lot of figs, and I don't know a single Californian who has not enjoyed the local varieties at least a few times.

Shel

[JAZ]

The other thing I noticed is most Californians I've met have never had a fig ...

You've met the wrong Californians. California grows a lot of figs, and I don't know a single Californian who has not enjoyed the local varieties at least a few times.

Shel

That was my experience too -- I don't even particularly like figs, yet when I lived in California, it seemed that they were on every menu. I couldn't avoid them.

[djyee100]

...I remember more Asian influence. Maybe only in Cupertino & San Jose? They use to have a sizable Japanese-American group

....The other thing I noticed is most Californians I've met have never had a fig, blood orange, cavolo nero, and others.

There's a strong Asian component in the food scene here, at least in the urban and suburban areas--Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Vietnamese, Thai, Indonesian, Burmese, even Tibetan. I didn't mean to imply otherwise. There's also food from the European Mediterranean, Africa, India, Middle East, and places in between, and they play a role in the California food scene also.

The OP asked what is "Californian cuisine," which I interpreted to mean the classic image of California cuisine to outsiders, much as the term "Southern cooking" may bring up the images of fried chicken, biscuits with gravy, ham, collards, and the like. Obviously, to the insider, Southern cooking means more than just those few iconic items.

The better supermarkets and the farmers mkts here seem to stock items like figs and blood oranges when they're in season. Again, this would be in the urban and suburban areas. Why the Californians you met haven't tasted these things I can't say. I don't know where they were shopping and living. But it seems to me that a big range of produce is available for anyone willing to shop for it, and there's plenty of it.

Do most produce grown in California get shipped out?

Yes, because there's so much of it. But don't worry, we keep all the best stuff for ourselves. Welcome to California, and good luck on your move!

[heidih]

As a native I would say that Sunset magazine typifies our home cuisine. It brings readers information about our immigrant's cuisines and shows us how to integrate them into our cooking. Not fusion; integretion. I poured over the back issues in the late 70's and early 80's and learned alot that stimulated me to explore further in the native cuisines. My mom's Dutch Baby pancake made in a Le Creuset pan with a removable wooden handle came from Sunset. I concur with fresh produce, lots of outdoor cooking, and no rigid rules.

[yasuofenix]

LOL I'm being serious when I say I met people from California who have never ate a fig or blood orange. I say fig they say newton. Some of these people I've met were from Orange County if that explains anything. And most of them were Asian. I'm part Asian myself, but we've always eaten figs. Maybe its a cultural preference? I don't know.

California is a very contrasting place which is a good thing in some ways. I look forward to moving there. My plans are to open my own ice cream shop eventually. One of my favorite flavors to make in the past was Black Mission Fig Ice Cream, fresh that is. They came from California of course, but they did suffer from the trek over to NYC. They shouldn't travel that far.

But seriously... does California Pizza Kitchen really come from there? I use to go there when I was in college, thinking back I must have been depressed to go there. My hometown is Passaic, there was a pizza place on every block at one point.

And speaking of Blood Oranges... where are they? I'm still in NYC and we are bare. Are you keeping them all to yourselves?

Thanks.

[nibor]

yasuofenix, you will be happier here in Orange County if you can keep an open mind about it.

Take a deep breath and explore. That is the essence of "California Cuisine", in my opinion.

This is so not New Jersey, not that there is anything wrong with that.

[yasuofenix]

No place is like New Jersey, and no place is like Passaic... well maybe Naples. I wouldn't even say I'm from NJ. In terms of in-state I never left my hometown for anything unless it was to go to NYC or the airport. And I hardly left the East Village unless it was to cross Houston St to go to work. I'm somebody who never had to WALK more than half a mile, forget driving.

I try to have an open mind, I've been traveling since I was 3 (to Lourdes, France to "cure" my crippled grandfather")

And I use to live in China.

To be honest, when I flew to California to meet my partner to scope out locations for an ice cream place I would have never thought I liked Orange County. I use to go to camp out in Atwater and met kids from Orange County. They made me think of it as the land of fast-food. It kinda is, but when I was brought to Huntington & Laguna Beach I was hooked. Being in the water even cured the sores on my hand from excessive knife work.

I'm a Passaic/East Village kid nothing will change that, but man I love the Pacific Ocean.

What is the most commonly used protein in California? My guess would be beef but I've seen a lot of duck on menus. Is goat common? You have a massive Mexican community and over here Mexican people love goat.

[nibor]

What is the most commonly used protein in California? My guess would be beef but I've seen a lot of duck on menus. Is goat common? You have a massive Mexican community and over here Mexican people love goat.

There are lots of different people here, from all over the world, and they are eating lots of different things.

[yasuofenix]

Thanks, I think I've come to understand what California cuisine "is" from reading this thread. That is refreshing as I am leaving my home to move there.

I come from a heavy French/Italian background so let's see how I can fit in.

[AAQuesada]

To who ever asked, yes CPK is from California, LA to be more specific. It started of as a take on Wolfgang Puck's famous salmon pizza (sometimes called 'jewish pizza'). The CPK founders hired WP's pizza chef as a consultant and the rest is history.

[kalypso]

Okay, I'm guessing I'm probably older than most of the people that have responded on this thread but I am a native Californian and a native San Diegan, the latter of which makes me a rarity in my age group. I grew up in SoCal, lived for 15 years in LA and 10 years in the Bay Area before moving back to SD. And while I would never, ever claim my perspective of what denotes California Cuisine is the right one or the only one, it is based on (OMG) 50+ years of eating up and down the state.

Did California Pizza Kitchen really begin in CA? Yes, see previous reply

Does a lot of CA produce get shipped out? Yes. CA feeds the nation, and the world, with it's produce.

And since you're moving to OC, I have very distinct memories of driving from SD to visit relatives in the LA area, or going to Disneyland, and driving through mile after mile after mile of orange groves. They are, of course, long gone, uprooted and destroyed for urban development. You can, however, still go out to Riverside county and find groves of oranges and other citrus. San Diego has been and still is the leading producer of avocados in the US.

For me, California cuisine is based on fresh produce and lots of it. Fresh lettuce and cabbages of diverse variety, asparagus, artichokes, asian vegetables, onions, tomoatoes, white corn, garlic, citrus, avocadoes, apricots, peaches, almonds...in other words, things that grow well in a moderate climate with rainfall that varies from less than 10" to over 40". Then there is the seafood...rock lobsters, spotted rock shrimp, luscious Dungeness crab, sand dabs, local halibut and rock fish. During the mid-20th century, San Diego had one of the largest tuna fleets in the world; Starkist and Chicken-of-the-Sea both had major processing plants here. Growing up one thing I always considered quite normal was the diversity of fresh produce even during winter months. It wasn't until I got older and started traveling and meeting people not from CA did I realize that there are many parts of the US where the produce selection during the winter is pretty limited. We always had fresh produce. Canned veggies were not standard fare in our house because we could always get something fresh.

With the incredible variety of fresh ingredients the cooking style evolved into one highlighting the ingredient rather than the method of cooking. And the style was light, foregoing heavy sauces and rigid (read traditional)combinations. Not only was the cooking style unique, so was the dining. CA cuisine flourished in spaces that were light, bright, airy, full of foilage, flowers and casual. It was promoted as "haute cuisine" but served in an environment that was decidedly not fine dining. CA cuisine isn't strictly about the food, you have to include the setting and the ambiance. Service was important, but the goal was to marry the fresh CA ingredients and cooking styles with the casual, laid back lifestyle to create a fine dining experience that didn't feel (or look) like traditional, white tablecloth, fine dining. Before Wolfgang Puck there was Michael McCarthy and his ode to California cuisine, Michaels in Santa Monica. It was the destination for CA cuisine and epitomized the clean flavors, and casual, seemingly effortless dining. Read about him here at this link

As Heidi noted Sunset magazine did a huge amount to promote and define CA cuisine by introducing us to the thrill of the grill - we grill everything. We don't Bar-B-Que, we grill. Bok Choy on the barbi? Why not - as well as the cuisines of the of the immigrant populations. Not only did Sunset make ethnic foods approachable, they provided some cultural context, helped us find unfamiliar ingredients and then provided no-fail recipes that used those hard-to-find ingredients all the while introducing us to new flavor profiles that would find their way into everyday, mainstream dishes. Sunset also helped us define the environment by showing us how to create casual outside living spaces. If you can get your hands on really old issues of Sunset you will be able to trace the evolution of California style - not just cuisine - through the 20th century.

If you look at immigration patterns it's pretty easy to see the influence in specific areas. During the first half of the 20th century ethnic food in SoCal was defined by it's hispanic (mostly Mexican) population, as well as a small but mighty Japanese enclave in LA. After Saigon fell in the 70s there was a huge influx into the Garden Grove area giving rise to Little Saigon and the development of a whole range of Asian dining opportunities. The Vietnamese were followed by the Cambodians and Lao into the greater LA area. Another migration into SoCal that shouldn't be ignored as it provided some of the basis for the development of CA cuisine, is the fact that after WWII huge numbers of men from Iowa, Nebraska and Kansas were discharged from the military and chose to stay in CA (mostly SD, OC and Long Beach) and not go back home. They retained their midwest values and tastes but they also began experimenting with the new foods they found in CA. While they didn't stray too far from their meat and potatoes midwest roots, they were laying the foundation for the transition that was to come in the 70s. In NorCal you're more apt to see the influence of the Chinese who immigrated to build railroads and work gold mines, as well as the influences of the strong Italian community that settled in the Bay Area.

In the 40s it took my parents 2 days to drive from San Diego to San Francisco on perilous 2-lane highways. Today I can hop on a plane and be in SF in less than 2 hours. In CA never underestimate the power of transportation. It's more than our famous car culture. It's propelled the state's economy to one of the largest in the world and it's encouraged and allowed the comingling of ingredients, cooking styles/methods and cultural diversity by providing easy access to all parts of the state. For me, CA cuisine is what I grew up eating - an amalgamation of fresh ingredients, influenced by assorted ethnic traditions, simply prepared and served in a well appointed but casual environment.

[edwardsboi]

Since Wikipedia seems to be the final arbiter in almost all internet discussions, I thought I'd look up California Cuisine on Wikipedia. Interestingly enough, while it credits Alice Waters with being the public face of California Cuisine and credits Jeremiah Tower, the former chef at Chez Panisse as the originator of California Cuisine, Chez Panisse really doesn't match the rubric set forth in wikipedia for what constitutes California Cuisine.

It defined California Cuisine as "a style of cuisine marked by an interest in 'fusion' – integrating disparate cooking styles and ingredients – and in the use of freshly prepared local ingredients."

Yet, I've never really thought of Chez Panisse as being influenced or interesed in 'fusion'. Instead, the cuisine is and has always been really, really francophillic with the exception when Bertolli was the chef, where you saw some more Italian influences. Its like a quaint, romaticized ideal of France with great Californian ingredients.

Maybe, California is too large to encompass one regional cuisine where there's a difference between Northern and Southern Californian cuisine. When I think of other chefs famous for California Cuisine, I think of Wolfgang Puck and Susan Goin in LA with Judy Rogers up in SF.

Rogers and Goin both worked in Chez Panisse, so you see some similarities but also some differences. Rogers is more like Chez Panisse, heavily francophillic influences with some Italian touches. Whereas, down in LA, with Puck and Goin, they embrace the diversity of LA and the cuisines of their diverse line cooks. Puck's restaurant in the 80s was called Chinois, and he heavily incorporated and borrowed Asian cuisines. And, Goin seems to use chile d'arbo, a Mexican ingredient, in almost all her dishes.