San Francisco

A Food Biography

By (author) Erica J. Peters

Not available to order

Publication date:

22 August 2013

Length of book:

230 pages

Publisher

AltaMira Press

ISBN-13: 9780759121539

San Francisco is a relatively young city with a well-deserved reputation as a food destination, situated near lush farmland and a busy port. San Francisco's famous restaurant scene has been the subject of books but the full complexity of the city's culinary history is revealed here for the first time. This food biography presents the story of how food traveled from farms to markets, from markets to kitchens, and from kitchens to tables, focusing on how people experienced the bounty of the City by the Bay.
Perched on the edge of a continent with connections east and west, San Francisco is both grittily genuine and breezily cosmopolitan. Food historian Peters examines how the diverse factors of geography and culture formed the city’s foodways and in turn how the food culture of San Francisco influenced the world. Blessed with abundant natural resources and an excellent climate, the City by the Bay has seen both boom and bust. Well-documented chapters consider foods, the impact of immigrants on cuisine, signature restaurants and/or dishes, and other unique aspects of the city’s culinary history, covering topics from the earliest Native American inhabitants through the modern city’s rough-and-tumble beginnings in the Gold Rush days and its history as a sort of ground zero for counterculture. VERDICT Scholarly yet readable, this aptly titled “food biography” of the city traces the development of its restaurants and food culture, reflecting its complex fabric of customs and ethnicities.