California Cuisine

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For the local cuisine of California, see cuisine of California.

California Cuisine is a style of cuisine marked by an interest in "fusion"— integrating disparate cooking styles and ingredients— and is freshly prepared using local ingredients. The food is typically prepared with particularly strong attention to presentation. The term California Cuisine is a somewhat whimsical monicker referring to a relatively recent invention and should not be confused with the traditional foods of California.

Alice Waters, of the restaurant Chez Panisse in Berkeley, California, is usually credited with originating California cuisine and retains the reputation of offering the ultimate California cuisine experience. Her cuisine emphasizes the freshest ingredients which are in season and are procured solely from local farms. Wolfgang Puck, from the Spago restaurants, popularized California cuisine by catering high profile celebrity parties such as the Oscars after party. Puck became a celebrity in his own right, one of the first celebrity chefs.

Jeremiah Tower was a chef who worked for Alice Waters at Chez Pannisse and then opened his own restaurant, Stars, in San Francisco. Tower, who was awarded a degree in architecture from Harvard, was the first to start the "stacked presentation". This is also where the great chef, Mark Franz, got his start in San Francisco. The success of Stars restaurant helped the hype of California Cuisine as "what the stars eat". In his heyday he was on the cover of time life magazine and owned restaurants around the world.

[edit] Ingredients and dishes

The emphasis of California Cuisine is on the use of fresh, local ingredients. Menus are changed to accommodate the availability of ingredients in season.

To some, ingredients less common outside of California, have become associated with California Cuisine. These ingredients include goat cheese, avocados, artichokes, figs, dates, persimmons, and dungeness crabs.

Similarly, some dishes are traditionally considered to be part of California Cuisine, such as Cioppino, the Cobb salad and the California-style pizza.