California Cuisine – The Melting Pot of The West

By arya

The only thing people like better than talking about food and watching food TV like the Food Network is actually eating good food. Californians are known to have good taste for creative dishes. A stylish culinary movement that originated in the Golden State, known as California cuisine, grows more popular every day. Even though this term is familiar to lots of food lovers, not many can actually define it. What is California Cuisine anyway?

California blends and fuses a variety of cultural styles and transforms common dishes into something uncommonly good. California food uses local, organic and sustainable ingredients that’s prepared with a wide-variety of spices or herbs that’s supplied by many wholesale restaurant supply stores.

Californian restaurants are famous for combining seemingly impossible elements like Tacos Sinaloa in Berkeley where they make Shrimp tostadas made with locally grown ingredients and served in refreshingly light and tasty tacos.

A Background of California Delicacies

The Golden State’s cuisine mirrors California’s history of immigration and years of cultural integration. The state’s diverse cultural history has helped Californian chefs to develop a cuisine that’s a gand fusion of meals from around the world. California’s food follows Spanish and Mexican traditions because in 1848, California was a part of Mexico.

The building of the Transcontinental Railroad and Gold Rush brought a large number of immigrant Chinese as well and they introduced new Asian-American tastes and cooking techniques that today influences so many of the restaurants along the West Coast. In the ’60s, hippies of the San Francisco Bay Area empowered local food movements such as vegetarianism and this has also found its way into mainstream California cuisine.

French cooking methods have also propagated throughout Californian food. Many chefs who influenced Californian cuisine actually completed their training in France.

French styles and tastes inform the recipes and cooking styles to create food that’s a unique patchwork of ingredients and flavors and also often very profitable for restaurants trying to control their costs.

California’s Seasonal Ingredients

When describing the particular style of food that is as diverse as Californian cuisine, it’s important to accentuate that the binding thread is the usage of the freshest ingredients.

California has different soil that supports an amazing variety of seasonal, fresh ingredients. Unlimited food selection is available due to the constant speed of supply of local ingredients. Organic and natural yet antibiotic-free livestock is one of the key features of Californian cuisine. On top of that, food in California often aims to please people who are health-conscious and those who are vegetarian or prefer vegetarian dishes. They ultimately desire wholesome quality recipes made with sustainable, local and freshly grown ingredients.

California rolls, for instance, are usually a central menu item in sushi restaurants and are a great example of a Californian dish. This particular roll has ingredients such as avocado encased in nori with rice, cucumber and crab.

Fresh ingredients such as citrus, avocados, and tofu are evergreen ingredients in Californian meals. Chicken and beef are common, while pork and lamb are used occasionally. Cooking methods include sauteing and rapid grilling to give dishes a fresh taste and color. In this particular cuisine, both appearance and presentation of food items are usually a top priority.