Right, this tangent is when you mistakingly give credit to Alice Waters for "Mediterranean cuisine" calling it a "contemporary local tradition". San Francisco was a port city with international flavor.
The Chez Panisse cookbook is biased as far as history goes, wouldn't you agree? Then again, why use a quote where they admit to using trucked in produce from Mexico, once it became available in California markets, as if it was a revelatory step? Clearly a farm in Mexico already had an audience or account to sell it to.
I'm not discounting Alice Waters role in pushing mesclun salads into our lives, and of course, she has had influence, but there is a point where it's fraud, and that point is when someone says ""Mediterranean cuisine" is the contemporary local tradition that started at Chez Panisse". Unless you're referring to a Chez Panisse that existed shortly after the Gold Rush days when French, Italian, Catalan, Spanish, and even North African influences found common ground, you're mistaken.
↧