The origins of Californian Cuisine
Until the 1970s, going to a restaurant in the U.S. most often meant facing a huge piece of meat drowning in sauce with overcooked vegetables. Then came Alice Waters. In 1971, she opened her Chez Panisse restaurant in Berkeley, a chic suburb of San Francisco, inspired by a stay in Provence. Back in 1952, food writer Helen Evans Brown published her best-selling West Coast Cookbook, advocating the use of fresh, local and seasonal produce. These demands may seem trivial to us, but they were truly revolutionary in the American culinary landscape, where consumers were accustomed to typically Anglo-Saxon cuisine, not to mention fast-food outlets, which were booming in the country at the time.
Chez Panisse paved the way for other restaurateurs who dared to mix flavors in a completely new way, using local, often organic produce - vegetables, fruit, cheese, cold cuts, olive oil - while paying tribute to the ingredients from the four corners of the globe used by the many communities living in California: Chinese, Filipinos, Mexicans, Japanese and others.
In Yountville, Napa Valley, Sally Schmitt began serving monthly single-menu dinners with an emphasis on local ingredients. She continued the concept with The French Laundry, which she opened with her husband Don in 1978. In Los Angeles, chef Wolfgang Puck - trained in Paris and Monaco, among other places - opened his Spago restaurant in 1982, offering inventive Californian cuisine. In 1983, he also opened a fusion restaurant with Asian accents: Chinois On Main. Mark Peel, Ed LaDou and Daniel Patterson also played an important role in this made-in-California culinary revolution.
Inventive restaurateurs weren't the only ones to benefit from this wind of change. Many farmers and artisans began to produce differently. Goat's cheese, for example, was virtually unknown to Americans until the 1970s. For city dwellers, farmers' markets have become a veritable institution, where local farmers offer their products. The farmers' market at the Ferry Building is one of the most famous. Here, you can sample a number of Californian cheeses, such as Monterey Jack, similar to aged cheddar, and Pepper Jack, with chili flakes. Purple Haze is a fresh goat's cheese scented with fennel pollen and lavender flowers. Finally, Humboldt Fog is a ripened goat's cheese with a Brie-like texture and a fine layer of ash running through it, a nod to our Morbier cheese.
The US cuisine of California
While the basics of American cuisine - steak frites, burgers, hot dogs, etc. - can be found in this state, there are more local specialties. -But there are more local specialties. San Francisco's most common dish is probably clam chowder, a creamy clam chowder served all along Northern California's Pacific coast. It's often eaten in a hollowed-out sourdough bread bowl.
San Francisco is also famous for its crabs. Dungeness crab cakes are small, breaded crab cakes flavored with chives and paprika, served with mayonnaise. Fish and seafood, especially Pacific oysters, are also very popular. To be enjoyed at Fisherman's Wharf, of course.
Mexican influences are very much in evidence. The burrito first appeared in the Mission District in the 1960s, when Cal cuisine was in its infancy in the Berkeley area. In the tortilla: Mexican-style rice, fried with onions and tomato, red beans, melting shredded meat (beef or pork). Other toppings may include cheddar or Monterey jack cheese, cilantro, avocado, sour cream or hot peppers. Tacos are crispy corn cakes, folded into a half-moon shape and filled with a variety of toppings, usually ground beef, cheese, tomato and lettuce.
The California-style pizza was invented by Ed LaDou - first pizzaiolo at Wolfgang Puck's Spago restaurant in Los Angeles - who popularized thin-crust pizzas, daring to use ingredients that were highly unusual for the time: duck sausage, chicken with barbecue sauce, avocado, coriander, etc.
Gastronomic visit in Chinatown
The West Coast's main gateway for immigrants from Asia, nearly a third of San Francisco's population is of Asian origin, with around two-thirds coming from China. San Francisco's Chinatown is the oldest in the USA and one of the largest on the American continent. As early as the mid-19th century, Chinese migrants arrived in California, attracted by gold and bringing their cuisine with them. Over time, the dishes were adopted by local palates.
Notable among this Chinese-American cuisine is chop suey, a mixture of meat or seafood with vegetables and omelette, generally prepared with locally available ingredients. Others include beef & broccoli (strips of beef with broccoli and oyster sauce), General Tso chicken (fried chicken in a sweet and sour sauce), crab Rangoon (fried ravioli with crab and fromage frais) or Mongolian beef (strips of beef with onion and hot pepper sauce). Some of these dishes are also found in China, such as chow mein (fried noodles), fried rice (Cantonese rice) or eggrolls (egg rolls).
Typically Cantonese - in south-eastern China - dim sum are specialties served in teahouses. These little morsels, often ravioli, are usually steamed in bamboo baskets, or sometimes deep-fried. There are also baked turnovers and puff pastries, or dishes served cold. All kinds are ordered and shared. You'll find many wonderful dim sum restaurants in Chinatown. While Sino-American cuisine has long been popular, more and more Americans are seeking out more authentic flavors, and San Francisco is home to a multitude of restaurants serving regional Chinese cuisine from Beijing, Shanghai, Canton, Sichuan and Yunnan.
But there are also many other enclaves and communities of Asian origin, such as Japantown, in the Western Addition district, as well as several Koreatowns. San José, a suburb of San Francisco, boasts the world's largest Vietnamese community outside Vietnam, located in the Little Saigon district. There's also a very large Filipino community, representing no less than 5% of the population. It's a melting pot that translates into an infinite variety of restaurants.
Desserts and drinks
On the sweet side, there are a number of desserts that originated in California, such as maple bars (long doughnuts with a maple syrup glaze), chiffon cakes (extremely light sponge cakes), chiffon pies (tarts with an airy fruit mousse, usually lemon) and the famous fortune cookies, thin wafers containing an omen found in Chinese restaurants.
Of course, there are countless pastry shops in San Francisco offering all the American sweets you could wish for: cupcakes, donuts, muffins, cheesecakes and a multitude of cakes and pies of all kinds. And the city has no shortage of creativity, with some surprising combinations of flavors. Not to be missed: a detour to Chinatown and Japantown for exotic and unexpected pastries. San Francisco is also rich in quality chocolatiers: the venerable Ghirardelli (1852), but also XoX Truffles, Sharffen Berger, Cocoa Bella and Recchiuti.
If American coffee(filter coffee or Americano) is often compared to sock juice, filtered and reheated all day long, San Francisco is an exception, and the locals are proud of their coffee culture. You'll find good, locally-roasted coffee everywhere, especially in the Italian neighborhood of North Beach, where this coffee religion began. Incidentally, you'll see relatively few Starbucks in the area: locals tend to avoid them. The king of coffees here is Irish Coffee, invented in San Francisco in 1952. A blend of hot coffee, whisky and whipped cream, it was recreated at the Buena Vista Café, after its first creation in Ireland in the 1930s.
Tea lovers will also find everything from Taiwanese bubble tea with gelatinous tapioca beads to richly spiced Indian chai latte. Whether you order still water or soda, please note that your glass will always be filled with ice cubes. Please specify if you don't want any. Please note: under 21s (the age of majority in the U.S.) are not allowed to consume alcohol, and you will always be asked to show proof of identity.
The vineyard, US version
It was in 1976, following the judgement of Paris, which brought together eleven specialists for a blind tasting at the Intercontinental Hotel in the French capital, that Californian wine acquired its letters of nobility. For both red and white wines, Californian wines came out ahead of French crus. A veritable revolution in the closed circle of wine specialists. Since then, Californian grape varieties have been viewed with fresh eyes on the Old Continent.
Most Californian wines are produced in Napa Valley and Sonoma Valley, north of San Francisco. The mountains to the east, which block cold air masses from the Sierra Nevada, and the Pacific Ocean to the west, create a multitude of microclimates. Many vineyards are open to visitors and offer wine-tasting tours. The most common grape varieties are Cabernet Sauvignon and Pinot Noir for red wines, and Chardonnay and Sauvignon for white wines. And let 's not forget sparkling wines.
In addition to wines, you'll find a wide variety of cocktail bars, and several famous cocktails originated in San Francisco, such as the Martini (gin and vermouth with olive or lemon zest), the Cable Car(spiced rum, orange curaçao and lemon juice), california Milk Punch (milk, cream, bourbon, maple syrup and vanilla), Pisco Punch (pineapple juice, pisco, lemon juice, cane sugar and sparkling water), Mai Tai (rum, curaçao, orgeat and lime juice) and Tequila Sunrise (orange juice, tequila, grenadine). Beer is obviously very popular, and the San Francisco area is home to countless microbreweries. The first moderncraft beer brewery in the USA was New Albion Brewing Company, founded in 1976 in the Sonoma region.
