"Joyce Goldstein is the foremost expert on the watershed moment in American cooking when little-known ingredients began to shine and chefs came out of the kitchen. The California revolution created the foundation for the food personalities and flavors that we see globally today. This book tells the story better than any other." –Mario Batali, chef and author of Molto Italiano

“Bravo! Joyce Goldstein’s authoritative and eminently entertaining work retires the field on all books attempting to define the California food movement that forever changed the course of how we eat in America. It’s a must-read for any cook, restaurateur, journalist, and restaurant-lover who is genuinely curious about how and where it all started.” –Danny Meyer, chef and author of Setting the Table: The Transforming Power of Hospitality in Business

"Who is better suited than Joyce Goldstein to curate and catalogue the influence that California has had on how we eat and dine today? This engrossing book is a satisfying and engaging read." –David Kinch, chef and author of Manresa: An Edible Reflection

“A smart and succinct summary of those key decades in California that changed the way many Americans eat and view food. I'm so glad that Joyce Goldstein has put this special history together; she's the one to have done it.” –Deborah Madison, founding chef at Greens restaurant and author of Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone

“Joyce Goldstein shows, in compelling, illuminating detail, that what we call California cuisine is simply California itself revealed: the land, the climate, a way of thinking and a way of living made manifest on a plate. Her research is thorough, her ear impeccable, and her storytelling enthralling. This is a glorious and – dare one say it – delicious book.” –Gerald Asher, former wine editor of Gourmet, and author of A Vineyard in my Glass and A Carafe of Red

“This book is a must read for anyone who cares about food and its ability to influence and inspire community building and change. A new generation now has a deeper understanding of how to take the movement even further, to push the limits of flavor, seasonality, locality, authenticity and freshness. Simply Delicious!” –Sam Mogannam, coauthor of Bi-Rite Market's Eat Good Food

"This is an impeccably detailed account of one of our country's most influential and enduring culinary developments. It provides insights into the California food movement that are enlightening even to some of us who lived and ate through it. One may disagree with some of the assessments, but this book is a valuable read toward understanding what went on and why, and how we continue to benefit from it." –Mimi Sheraton, author of The German Cookbook and Eating My Words: An Appetite for Life

Joyce Goldstein was chef and owner of the groundbreaking restaurant Square One in San Francisco. She received the James Beard Award for Best Chef in California and the Lifetime Achievement Award from Women Chefs and Restaurateurs. She is the author of twenty-six cookbooks, and her writing appears in the San Francisco Chronicle, Sommelier Journal, Fine Cooking, and many other publications.

Dore Brown is Principal Editor at University of California Press.

California Revolution

Thirty Years That Changed Our Culinary Consciousness

By Joyce Goldstein, Dore Brown

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PRESS

Copyright © 2013 The Regents of the University of California
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-520-26819-7

Contents

Preface, vii,
Introduction, 1,
1 Thirty Years of Food Revolution: A Historical Overview, 15,
2 One Revolution, Two Ways: Northern versus Southern California, 39,
3 Defying Kitchen Convention: Self-Taught Chefs and Iconoclasts, 62,
4 Women Chefs and Innovation: The New Collaborative Kitchen, 84,
5 New Flavors: Upscale Ethnic, Eclectic, and Fusion Food, 109,
6 New Menus: The Daily Menu and the Story behind the Food, 130,
7 Restaurants Reimagined: Transformations in the Kitchen and Dining Room, 154,
8 A New World of Fresh Produce: Reviving the Farm-to-Table Connection, 187,
9 Custom Foods: Chefs Partner with Purveyors and Artisans, 224,
10 Merging the Worlds of Wine and Food: Common Cause, 262,
Afterword: The Continuing Evolution of California Cuisine, 299,
Acknowledgments, 321,
Sources, 323,
Index, 331,

CHAPTER 1

Thirty Years of Food Revolution

A Historical Overview

California has always been as much of a state of mind as a state of the Union.... Other places have decent organic produce, or so they say. But California promises something more: transformation. The state is the repository of America's frontier spirit, the notion that a better life is possible for anyone who wants it regardless of the circumstances of her birth. You can leave your past at the border and reinvent yourself here.

—Peggy Orenstein, "The Coast of Dystopia," New York Times, January 15, 2010

On May 9, 1984, I was waiting for the electrician to turn on the power so we could cook our first dinner at my restaurant, Square One. Although the official opening was not until May 14, we had invited friends to come for a few trial meals to help us get used to the kitchen and refine our timing. Square One's manager, Max Alexander, had hired more waiters than we needed because he knew that not all of them would make the grade. I was still learning their names and their handwriting, because in those days before computer ticketing systems, the orders were handwritten in duplicate.

Sous chef Paul Buscemi and I had been in the kitchen prepping like mad with our staff. Barbara Haimes and Amaryll Schwertner had followed us from Chez Panisse, as had pastry chef Craig Sutter. We had made pea and lettuce soup, a tuna and white bean salad, gorgonzola- and ricotta-stuffed ravioli with sage butter, and saffron fettuccine with clams, onion, and basil. We had grilled halibut with charmoula (a Moroccan sauce made with fresh coriander and spices), lamb chops with mint aioli, ossobuco alla milanese, and pork with housemade mango chutney. The bread baker, Thomas Solis, was making whole-grain loaves. Craig Sutter and Diane Dexter in our pastry department were preparing macadamia cake with crème anglaise and poached kumquats, puff pastry pecan tarts with bourbon whipped cream, and flan with the first of the season's strawberries.

We held our breath as the orders came in. We hadn't slept for days. I had lost fifteen pounds from stress. But our guests were smiling and coming up to the line to thank us and wish us well.

* * *

I had come a long way from my childhood in Brooklyn, when I was the problem eater who pushed away food because I didn't like it. We had bad cooks on both sides of the family: the vegetables were overcooked, the lamb stew was gray, the roasts were shriveled—even the brisket was dry! We ate Birds Eye frozen peas and carrots, and yes, even Jell-O. A good night was a rare filet mignon and a baked potato.

With both my parents working, we ate out at least twice a week. Restaurants saved my culinary life and showed me that good food was possible. I realized that to eat well I would have to learn to cook. In graduate school, when I finally had my own kitchen, I taught myself from books and my taste memories. I pored over Irma Rombauer's Joy of Cooking, Craig Claiborne's New York Times Cookbook, and Elizabeth David's Book of Mediterranean Food and French Provincial Cooking. Whenever I tasted a new dish, I would look it up in a few cookbooks and try to reproduce it at home, adjusting the recipe as I went along to match my recollection of the flavor.

But it was in Italy that my taste buds were truly awakened. After a brief visit in 1957, I went with my husband to live in Rome from 1959 to 1960. We had no refrigerator in our rented apartment so I shopped daily. I also ate out as often as possible to learn about Italian cuisine and ingredients. I gained twenty-four pounds in my quest to find the perfect version of spaghetti alla carbonara, which ended euphorically at Pier Luigi's. I compared the bite-sized fresh mozzarella ovolini and all manner of salumi at five neighborhood shops. I tasted the difference between baby goat chops and diminutive lamb chops. I learned to love assertive and bitter flavors and began adding radicchio and arugula to my salads. Italy changed forever the way I cooked.

Back in the 1950s and 1960s, a generation of aspiring cooks like me, tired of the dreary and predictable food landscape in the United States, avidly consumed the food writing of Elizabeth David, M.F.K. Fisher, Waverly Root, Ada Boni, and Julia Child. Along with providing recipes, these writers gave us a sense of place. We dreamed of dining at the French country inn described by Roy Andries De Groot in Auberge of the Flowering Hearth or of eating cacciucco at a seaside restaurant in Livorno, as brought to life by Elizabeth David in her book Italian Food. We were eager to discover new foods and to learn more about the history and culture of the countries they came from.

Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking appeared on the scene in 1961. By the midsixties I was teaching cooking classes to middle-class housewives, and it was the era of the competitive dinner party. My students were buying Chuck Williams's imported French cookware at the newly opened Williams-Sonoma store and then killing themselves making Julia's Veal Prince Orloff, seafood quenelles, and cassoulet for eager guests. Long before the movie Julie and Julia appeared, there were women who cooked their way through Julia Child three times. Mastering the Art of French Cooking brought the fundamentals within reach of a generation longing to become more worldly and sophisticated.

The 1960s was a decade of burgeoning affluence, and with the new affordability of jet travel, many more Americans went abroad. Arthur Frommer's Europe on Five Dollars a Day, published in 1957, enabled even frugal families to experience the Old World. Many future California cuisine chefs first learned to appreciate food while vagabonding in Europe after or in place of college. Their ensuing approach to cooking "had so much to do with reading and traveling," said Los Angeles Times restaurant reviewer S. Irene Virbila, known to her friends as Sherry. "Once you traveled and tasted better food, you wanted to replicate that. What if Alice Waters hadn't gone to France!"

At the same time that Californians were being exposed to other parts of the world through travel and literature, they were defining their own identity and establishing a distinctively western way of life....