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California Cuisine is an energizing, relatively new cooking style that has influenced cooks and diners around the nation.
California Cuisine chefs use ingredients that are fresh and from trusted, quality local farmers and ranchers.
Cooks are encouraged to try new combinations of ingredients, even if it seems odd to mainstream America.
One seldom prepares anything exactly the same way twice. Because of this, it is difficult to create a meaningful compendium of truly iconic California Cuisine recipes.
Cooks try to maintain an ingredient's look and natural flavor. In doing the latter, they avoid using too many ingredients in the same dish.
Presentation and taste are on equal footing - colors, shapes and other visuals count highly.
Backyard grilling is a California passion and cooks prefer fast, not slow cooking. This explains why grilling is far more popular than roasting or charcoal-barbecuing meats.
Vegetables are more likely to be quickly steamed or parboiled than braised or stewed (and may seem undercooked by national values). Sauces tend to be simple, not involved.
The birthyear of California Cuisine was 1971 when chef Alice Waters opened her now legendary Chez Panisse restaurant in Berkeley. She was the first restaurateur known to emphasize all of the pillars mentioned above.
The state is blessed with magnificent edible gifts from both land and sea. Its climate and soil enable it to grow most of the nation's vegetables. It has a 1350- kilometer (840-mile) coastline kissed by a seafood-rich ocean current. It has some of the world's best wine growing regions. The list goes on and on.
California's 35-million-plus people come from many cultures and countries. This helped foster a fusion cuisine.
Of course, it would be a mistake to suggest that everyone is a bona fide California Cuisiner. Most citizens are not. This is the land of fast food, where many of the nation's leading chains - including McDonalds and Taco Bell - were started.
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