Topic: Cuisine of Fisherman's Wharf in San Francisco

Edited 12/31/2013

Fisherman's Wharf in San Francisco.

Situated at the harbor area of San Francisco, Fisherman's Wharf is loved by tourists yet often looked down upon by locals.  But behind what they show for visitors is a deep history of culinary geography, starting with Italian-American fishermen coming to San Francisco to make a living feeding the population of the newly-founded city.  Often, they made much more money than the gold miners, many of whom never found any gold at all.

So where in Italy did these fishermen come from?  Italy has many cuisines depending on the region.  Locating where one of the more influential fishermen immigrated from may give insight as to how the cuisine of Fisherman's Wharf was formed.  Achille Paladini, the "Fish King" of San Francisco, earned his moniker because of his wealth stemming from selling fish to gold miners.  Also known as the man who popularized cioppino (recipe) in the United States, Achille was born in 1843 in Ancona, Italy, a town on the Adriatic coastline in the Marche province.

The Marche province is famous for seafood, especially for a dish known as brodetto (recipe), a fish stew similar to cioppino.  I would guess that the American version of cioppino originally may have partially been inspired by brodetto, because of the introduction of cioppino by Achille Paladini, who came from the same region that features brodetto.  Of course, it was also most likely influenced in equal part by Portuguese-American fishermen, because they had a fish stew even closer to cioppino.  Paladini could have also been inspired by Portuguese-American fishermen in the area as well.  I do, however, believe that the original idea came from brodetto, and modified by Portuguese-American influences.

Brodetto.

Cioppino.