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.

Restaurant Highlight: La Trattoria, The Blackberry Cafe

Edited 12/31/2013

For this Restaurant Highlight, I'm going beyond Redding and covering one restaurant in Arcata, California, and one in Thomastown, Ireland.


La Trattoria (Arcata)

Used with permission from James Becker of La Trattoria.

http://www.latrattoriaarcata.com/

Review: The best Italian food I've had in Humboldt County is here.  When I was attending Humboldt State University, I went here for special occasions: end of a semester, birthdays, and the like.  There is a rotating menu, so the choices are different every time.  I especially like their pasta dishes, but everything's good.  The service is great as well.

Geography: Like many other national cuisines, "Italian cuisine" is a blanket term for many styles of cooking found within the region.  La Trattoria's rotating menu uses many local ingredients, which vary depending on season.  In the winter months, they use dishes from northern Italian cuisines, and from southern Italian cuisines in the warmer months.  Not only does this allow the restaurant to use fresher and more in-season local ingredients, but it also allows it to focus on many climactic areas of Italy, a few at a time.


The Blackberry Cafe (Thomastown)

The staff of the Blackberry Cafe.  (Used with permission from Jackie Hoyne of the Blackberry Cafe.)

http://www.theblackberrycafe.ie/

Review: On my visit to Ireland, I stayed at the Carrickmourne House B&B in Thomastown for a total of two nights.  For those not familiar with Thomastown, it is a small riverside village in the southeast of Ireland.

While in Thomastown, I often ate at the Blackberry Cafe.  It is the quintessential Irish cafe: local ingredients, good food and drink, and friendly people.  The scones and the tea are the best I've had.  If you're in Thomastown, I suggest giving the place a visit.

Geography:  In the Irish countryside, "local" means local.  Even in places such as Arcata in the United States, many foods are branded as local, even if they are sourced up to 250 miles away.  Irish localism is more strict.  In rural Ireland, if you see a dish advertised as locally-sourced, it's probably 15 miles away or less.  This definitely holds true at the Blackberry Cafe, where most items are local.  This could be due to the high density of farms in the Irish countryside -- look from any hill (and there are many hills) and you will see at least two.  The abundance of small farms makes getting truly locally-sourced food much easier.

Belated Restaurant Highlight: New China, Yaadgar

Edited 12/31/2013

Today, I will be reviewing two more restaurants in Redding.

New China

Photo credit: Robin Heater (me)

http://newchinaredding.com/


Review: New China is most likely the best Chinese restaurant in Redding.  Like Gold Street Cafe, it is easy to overlook, but well worth finding it.  If you're going with at least one other person, I recommend the House Dinner.  It's $13.00 per person, and for the amount of food you get, it's a great deal.  The food is wonderful, and the people who work there are some of the nicest people I've ever met.

Geography:  New China represents the Cantonese style of Chinese cooking.  It comes from the Guangdong region of China, and is what most Westerners think of when they hear about Chinese food.  The dishes that New China serves are mostly the ones whose ingredients are widely available here in the United States.  It also leaves out most Cantonese dishes that many Westerners would not be used to, most likely to promote a more welcoming environment to people who are picky in their tastes.

Chinese food is usually broken down into regional cuisines.  I may discuss these in a future series of posts.


Yaadgar Indian and Pakistani Restaurant

Photo credit: Robin Heater (me)

http://yaadgarrestaurant.com/


Review: Yaadgar is most likely the best Indian restaurant in Redding.  It is also the only Pakistani restaurant in Redding that I know of.  They do a great job serving each cuisine; the food is wonderful, and the service is great.  What I appreciate most as a cultural geographer is that they do not deliberately try to mix the two cuisines.

Geography: The reason that I appreciate that they do not deliberately try to mix Indian and Pakistani cuisines is because the two countries have distinct cultures, and the cuisines should reflect this.  There are some naturally-occurring similarities in regions along the India-Pakistan border, and they also have dishes that reflect this.  This is also good, because it serves to more accurately reflect the wide range of regional cuisines within the bounds of the two countries.

If you want to know more about the differences between the two countries, visit:

http://yaadgarrestaurant.com/blog/pakistani-food-in-redding/



Check back next Saturday for more reviews!

Topic: Culinary Regions of California (San Francisco Bay)

Edited 12/31/2013

The Golden Gate Bridge, an icon of San Francisco.

The San Francisco Bay (SFB) region is comprised of San Francisco and San Mateo Counties, and the western portions of Alameda and Contra Costa Counties.

The area shown in red is the San Francisco Bay culinary region.

The region is characterized by innovations inspired by different cuisines, mostly from immigrants who moved to San Francisco from other countries.  It is, in this regard, similar to the cuisine of New York City.  The key difference is that countries with a Pacific coastline, and also Latin American countries, have had more influence on San Francisco because of the shorter distance.  The other parts of the region (besides San Francisco) are included due to culinary sprawl, a topic discussed in the last post.

It is possible that there will be numerous topics on the region, due to the wide culinary diversity even within the region.

Topic: Effects of Wine on Cuisine in the Hills, Lakes, and Wines Region

Edited 12/31/2013

Wine is so important to the Hills, Lakes, and Wines region of California that it plays a key role in the cuisine of the area.  Therefore, it is not surprising that French, Italian, and American food is popular there.  After all, those cuisines are famous for wine.  Often, two or more of these cuisines are mixed to form a fusion cuisine.

So why does wine have such a powerful influence on cuisine in the HLW region?  It cannot be stressed enough that wine is important not only to the culture, but to the economy.  Wine tourism is a huge money-maker in the area.  But food has been paired with alcohol almost since beer was consumed by the ancient Egyptians, so it is natural that winemakers suggest foods to pair with their wines.  This encourages restaurants, inspired by the local food movement to the north and south of the HLW region, to support local wines by serving those wine and food pairings that winemakers suggest.  This also creates a unique local food movement within the region, one that includes local wines and local food integrated with one another.

Napa County is certainly the culinary hearth of the area's cuisine.  However, Sonoma and Lake Counties have experienced what I call "culinary sprawl", the diffusion of cuisine from an original area to a new one.  As a result, culinary sprawl has also occurred from those counties back to Napa Counties and from and to each other, creating a unified cuisine, with each county having its particular niche that each county originally specialized in.  For example, Napa County's niche is wine, Lake County has its local inland fish, and Sonoma County has beef and seafood.  All of these come together, driven by Napa County's food and wine pairings, to form a cuisine unique to the HLW culinary region of California.

Ranch land in Sonoma County (Photo credit)

A fisherman at Clear Lake.

A vineyard in Napa County.

Photo credit:

1. By Sanfranman59 (Own work) [GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html) or CC-BY-SA-3.0-2.5-2.0-1.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

Topic: Culinary Regions of California (Hills, Lakes, and Wines Region)

Edited 12/31/2013

Sonoma County.

Lake County.

Napa County.

The Hills, Lakes, and Wines region (the HLW) is comprised of Lake, Mendocino, and Sonoma Counties.

The Hills, Lakes, and Wines culinary region is highlighted in red.

The region is characterized by world-famous restaurants featuring nouvelle, French, Italian and fusion cuisines.  It is also known for its wines, especially ones made from grapes grown in Napa County.

In the next post, I will explain how wine affects cuisine in the region.

Saturday Restaurant Highlight: Gold Street Cafe, Grace Place

Edited 12/31/2013

Every Saturday, I'm going to be reviewing two different restaurants (or places that serve food) that I've been to and, of course, tie those reviews in with geography.  First on the list is Gold Street Cafe.

Gold Street Cafe

http://goldstreetcafe.webs.com/locationhours.htm

Review: This seems at first to be just an average diner in the Redding area.  It's more than just that, though, because of its impeccable service.  While its food is not the fanciest around, it does a very good job with what it serves.  Eggs Benedict is my favorite thing on the menu.  I usually order it with mushrooms and onions instead of ham, with hash browns and extra Hollandaise sauce on the side.

Photo credit: Robin Heater (me)

Geography:  Gold Street Cafe's out-of-the-way location may steer some away from it.  I call this a "remote sense of place".  But I have found a rule of thumb: if a place looks worn down, and it has a remote sense of place, then that means the eatery is doing something right.  If it has been in business long enough to look that way even while it has a less-preferable relative location, then either the food is good, or the service is good enough to make up for it.  In the case of Gold Street Cafe, it is both.

Grace Place

Photo credit: Robin Heater (me)

http://www.graceplaceteahouse.org/

Review: If you enjoy good food and nice people, this is a place to be.  All kinds of tea from all over the world are here, which piques my interest as a food geographer.  What really sets it apart from other places is the wide variety of food and tea, and the fact that everybody is friendly.  Also, all proceeds go to help the elderly and the mentally disabled.  It is a very Christian-oriented business, but don't let that put you off if you're not Christian.  I am agnostic, and enjoy it for its service, food, and charitable causes.

Geography: For the geography of Grace Place, I want to talk about their teas.  Their regional teas mostly are representative of Eastern teas.  I am here at Grace Place now, writing this post, and have just finished a Masala Chocolate Truffle tea.  This borrows flavors from Indian (the notes of cardamom and clove) and Oregonian (the specific combination of truffle and chocolate) cuisines.  These two cuisines are famous for tea, the cuisine of Oregon more recently.  Soon, I may do a post on "hipster cuisine", and Oregonian cuisine will be talked at length about at that time.

Check back next Saturday, when I will review Brew and Yaadgar.