Also in Food & Health

The Slow Food Guide to San Francisco

And the Bay Area: Restaurants, Markets, Bars

by Sylvan Brackett, Wendy Downing, Sue Moore

Introduction

A political and social bubble, birthplace of beatniks, hippies, and foodies, the San Francisco Bay Area is subject to ridicule and awe. It’s the far edge of the country in more ways than one. It invites self-reinvention, serves as a refuge for nonconformists, and often suffers from parochial narcissism. It is also blessed with benevolent weather, one of the world’s most beautiful natural settings, and an embarrassment of culinary riches from sea to vineyards to pastures and farms. If you are hungry, it is a very good place to be.

The region’s first inhabitants were members of several different Native American tribes, loosely united under the common name Ohlone. Early explorers and settlers often dismissed the Ohlone as inferior because they were hunters and gatherers rather than farmers and herders. Today we recognize that they were simply wise enough to accept and honor the gifts so bountifully provided by nature.Acorns from the abundant oaks were their staple food, and oysters, abalone, deer, salmon, and waterfowl formed an essential part of their seasonal repasts. Sadly, European and American settlers decimated many native species and forever changed the landscape. Yet the area’s rich soils and temperate climate have remained, and these attributes have attracted generations of farmers, ranchers, and fishermen, many of whom approach nature’s gifts with a respect for quality, honest enjoyment, and sustainable cultivation and harvesting.

By the early 1970s two strains of food producers began to emerge in the Bay Area, both of them products of the counterculture sixties: back-to-theland hippies, farming organically; and cooks, most notably Alice Waters, who wanted to recreate a Californian version of the fresh, ingredientbased, nonprocessed cuisines they had enjoyed in Europe. As both groups grew more sophisticated, they recognized their common interests and began to converge. Wormy organic apples gave way to beautiful organic produce; old seed strains were rediscovered and cultivated once more. Organic farmers and chefs forged direct business relationships, and farms were credited on menus beginning with Berkeley’s Chez Panisse.

Today, the region is home to a wide range of artisanal cheese producers, organic pasture-based dairy farms, biodynamic and organic farmers of fruits and vegetables, winemakers, bakers of some of the world’s best (and even organic) breads, and environmentally conscious fishermen and oyster farmers. Many of these producers sell at the area’s extraordinarily popular farmers’ markets, which are frequented by locals—home cooks and professional chefs alike—promising spectacular eating both in and out of restaurants. While these producers, with a few exceptions, have not yet received the homage paid to star chefs, they are increasingly acknowledged and thanked by those chefs.

A universal recognition of these producers took place in Turin, Italy, in 2004, at Slow Food’s first Terra Madre gathering of “world food communities.” There, Slow Food brought together 5,000 caretakers of the earth—small-scale, sustainable farmers, herders, gatherers, and artisans from 130 countries, some of whom had never before left their villages. More than fifty Bay Area delegates attended this historic event, and many are now involved in far-reaching networks launched at the gathering.

The international spirit of Terra Madre is happily echoed in the Bay Area, where immigrant populations continue to bring to this country the culinary traditions of their homelands. These incredibly diverse foods and traditions are showcased every day in the plethora of restaurants and ethnic and specialty food shops that call San Francisco home. This book highlights many of their delicious contributions to the local food community and applauds their “Slow” adherence to tradition, while at the same time encouraging them to reach even further to include more sustainably grown or harvested ingredients.

Sustainably raised foods from local family farms have many benefits. First, they have delicious flavor. Next, the farms themselves provide a greenbelt for urban areas. And, most importantly, they promote individual and environmental health. To paraphrase Michael Pollan, when you purchase food, you are purchasing a landscape. We hope you enjoy our landscape.

—Eleanor Bertino