San Francisco: A Food Biography (Big City Food Biographies)
San Francisco’s inspired chefs; its markets packed with foodstuffs from nearby farmers, ranchers, and vintners; and its influential food writers have made the city the West’s gastronomic capital. In many ways, it serves as inspiration for most all contemporary American cooking. So this history of the city’s markets, restaurants, cookbooks, and signature dishes comes at the perfect moment. Piling up often-overlooked details, Peters catalogs how various immigrant groups have contributed to San Francisco’s cuisine while giving due credit to Native American ingredients and influences. She describes how the 1906 earthquake upended lives briefly before the city roared back. She relates stories of individual restaurants and food retailers, and she inventories specialties such as cioppino and Rice-A-Roni. Peters’ engaging explorations take her beyond the city proper to explain the national influence of Oakland’s Trader Vic’s and Berkeley’s Chez Panisse. Not just for regional collections, this treatise appeals to anyone who savors San Francisco past and present. --Mark Knoblauch