San Francisco - Alison Bing [112]
As the money poured in, San Francisco restaurants started catering to a multi-culti nouveau riche, and makers of specialty foods like Ghirardelli hit the mother lode with culinary risk-takers. French cuisine became all the rage, even though the French names of dishes and restaurants were unpronounceable to the city’s mostly non-Francophone population.
Once the gold dust settled and panic set in, cooking began to seem a much wiser occupation than gold mining – sooner or later, everyone has to eat. San Francisco became the gastronomic oasis of the West with an unrivalled variety of novelties and cuisines. Chinese culinary traditions date from the Gold Rush, and the first Italian restaurant in the USA was opened in North Beach in 1886. The 1942–64 US Bracero program importing Mexican agricultural labor brought local variations on Mexican staples, including ‘super’ tacos loaded with toppings and mega-meals wrapped in flour tortillas known as burritos.
As the turbulent 1960s wound down, many disillusioned idealists concluded that the revolution was not about to be delivered on a platter, but in the Bay Area, chefs weren’t about to give up on the idea. In 1971 Alice Waters opened Chez Panisse in a converted house in Berkeley, with the then-radical notion of making the most of the Bay Area’s seasonal, all-natural, sustainably produced bounty. Waters combined French flourishes with California attention to craft and San Franciscan innovation, and diners tasted the difference for themselves. Today, Waters’ credo of organic, seasonal, locally grown, pasture-raised cuisine has become a mantra for chefs worldwide and a rallying call for Bay Area chefs like Traci Des Jardins (see the boxed text).
Return to beginning of chapter
ETIQUETTE
San Francisco restaurants are thronged with people passing around food family-style, picking bites from one another’s plates, and discussing their food with their mouths full. Rude? Not in this town, where dining is an experience discussed scene by scene and play by play, like a movie or a basketball game. Dining companions often plot out their orders together, and if you’re not sharing plates family-style, it’s considered good form to offer dining companions a taste of your dish. If there’s something off about your dish, send it back – you can get your server’s attention with a polite ‘excuse me’ (garçon is considered pretentious, even in a French place).
San Franciscans tend to split the bill when dining out, so if you’re watching your cash flow, order modestly (ie skip the wine and dessert) and offer to cover your share when the bill comes (don’t forget to factor in tax and tip, which together tack on 25% to 30% to your bill). Otherwise, the bill is usually divided equally among diners.
Return to beginning of chapter
SPECIALTIES
California Cuisine
Even though it’s 150 years in the making, the Bay Area’s signature culinary tradition holds no ingredients sacred, and refuses to observe any strict canon of recipes. Dishes are prepared with a light touch in unexpected combinations, often using cooking techniques and kitchen craft borrowed from neighbors across the Pacific in East Asia and the distant Mediterranean (where the climate and soil are similar to the Bay Area’s). Cheeses, breads and meats are often provided by local artisans, and fruits and vegetables typically come from small family farms. Over the past two decades, SF restaurants have increasingly sourced ingredients from local organic producers practicing sustainable agriculture, bringing California