Book Group: Inside the California Food Revolution: Thirty Years That Changed Our Culinary Consciousness, by Joyce Goldstein

The Slow Food Russian River Book Group will be discussing Inside the California Food Revolution: Thirty Years That Changed Our Culinary Consciousness (Univerity of California Press, 2013), by Joyce Goldstein, with Dore Brown.

After we read this book we can participate in any conversation about regional food history!

About Joyce Golstein: “Goldstein came to cooking while in graduate school at Yale, where she not only received a master’s in fine arts but also threw impromptu dinners. Indeed, she jokes, hers was not the idealized childhood of learning to cook at her mother’s knee. “Nobody in my family could cook,” she says of growing up in Brooklyn. “It was all gray meat and gray vegetables. But both my parents worked, so I was lucky to eat out a lot. We went to Peter Luger’s and French restaurants. I cleaned my plate in restaurants.”

Used copies are available from Amazon resellers.

To RSVP email the Book Group at sfrrbookgroup@gmail.com.  The Book Group is open to anyone who can read, loves cooking a dish, and likes a good conversation.

The Book Group meets the first Thursday of the month, 7 – 9pm in Sebastopol. It’s a convivial dinner. Please bring a dish for four and a beverage.

Membership

To be a member of the Book Group you don’t need to be a member of Slow Food, although – of course – we hope that with time you will become one.

Summary of Inside the California Food Revolution: Thirty Years That Changed Our Culinary Consciousness

Summary provided by publisher: “In this authoritative and immensely readable insider’s account, celebrated cookbook author and former chef Joyce Goldstein traces the development of California cuisine from its early years in the 1970s to the present, when farm-to-table, foraging, and fusion cuisine are part of the national vocabulary. Goldstein’s interviews with almost two hundred chefs, purveyors, artisans, winemakers, and food writers bring to life an era when cooking was grounded in passion, bold innovation, and a dedication to “flavor first.” The author shows how the counterculture movement in the West gave rise to a restaurant culture that was defined by open kitchens, women in leadership positions, and the presence of a surprising number of chefs and artisanal food producers who lacked formal training. California cuisine challenged the conventional kitchen hierarchy and dominance of French technique in fine dining, she explains, leading to a more egalitarian restaurant culture and informal food scene. In weaving the author’s view of California food culture with profiles of those who played a part in its development-from Alice Waters to Bill Niman to Wolfgang Puck-Inside the California Food Revolution demonstrates that, in addition to access to fresh produce, the region also shared a distinctly Western culture of openness, creativity, and collaboration. Wonderfully detailed and engagingly written, this book elucidates as never before how the inspirations that emerged in California went on to transform the eating experience throughout the U.S. and the world. “.

Reviews of Inside the California Food Revolution

Interview in SFWeekly: Goldstein is probably the perfect candidate to document this movement given her history as a restaurateur (Square One), chef and author. Her worthwhile effort describes many of the key places (Stars, Chez Panisse, Zuni) and players — Alice Waters, Wolfgang Puck, Susan Feniger and Mary Sue Milliken, Mark Franz, Narsai David, Traci Des Jardins, Bill Niman, et al. She is able to dig deep on the local and national ramifications: from open kitchens to service and menu style, peer within these pages. SFoodie caught up with Goldstein to find out the how and why behind her exciting book. Goldstein will be cooking a course for the CUESA 11th annual Sunday supper on October 20. More…

From Goodreads: “While initially daunted by the small and dense-looking text, I fortunately started reading and was quickly drawn into the enthrallingly detailed story of the key decades of California food culture (1970-2000.) Goldstein provides wonderful interviews and reflections from a variety of pioneer cooks, restauranteurs, farmers and food producers who transformed how we eat in America. It is also refreshing to have this important story told from the the perspective of Californians, rather than the rather snarky tone that eastcoasters seem to use when discussing Californian food.” More…

More Reviews

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