Talk:Cuisine of California

Supplimentation of food
I was wondering if this would be an apporpiate article in which to concentrate study of Californian supplement use in health shakes, smoothies and the like --Rakista 19:32, 26 September 2005 (UTC)

Split
this article should properly ber split into two. California Cuisine is a type of cuisine, I think, that should be distinguished from "cuisine of california," in other words food eaten in california. It's senseless to describe hamburgers, mexican and chinese food in a discussion of California Cuisine. &mdash;The preceding unsigned comment was added by 68.252.185.138 (talk &bull; contribs).
 * Agreed. And the bit about White Castle's "slyders" is absolutely pointless, not to mention unsourced and possibly POV.  White Castle was the first fast food restaurant, and is not-- and has never been-- based in California.  Wendy's is also not a California-based company; it's this outlet, and not McDonald's, which is credited with the drive-thru window.  (Coincidentally, Wendy's began just a few miles from where White Castle is now based, in the Columbus, Ohio area.)  -- SwissCelt 04:43, 23 March 2006 (UTC)


 * I second doing the split as above. There's enough to make an article on California Cuisine, and the beginnings of one on cuisine of California.  I think there's enough support for this, so I'll do that now.  --C S (Talk) 05:10, 12 June 2006 (UTC)


 * What about the fact that many of the ingredients used in burgers, Chinese, and Mexican food are grown locally (in the state)? :-) Seriously, though, these foods exist in California because Mexico's right next door, Chinese came during the gold rush, and because the "California Burger" requires lettuce and tomato, which are plentiful in California.  California agriculture is heavily influenced by the influx of immigrants and people from other states.  These people helped introduce new or "exotic" foods to the larger culture.  It happened with Mexican food, Salvadorean, Oaxacan, Yucatecan, Baja, Michoacan, Japanese, Chinese (all types, particularly Hong Kong style), Korean, Vietnamese (along with Texas), Thai, Iranian, and Filipino food.  (Arguably, the Hawaiian fast food craze has roots in California too.) 66.245.193.86 09:20, 17 March 2007 (UTC)


 * Agreed. But worse than that is NOT discussing California Cuisine in an article on the Cuisine of California...because if the former is not part of the latter that's absurd. How can this piece not talk about Alice Waters????  — Preceding unsigned comment added by MAGARDINER (talk • contribs) 07:25, 15 May 2020 (UTC)
 * "California cuisine" is discussed in the section Fusion cuisine, with a links to the article California cuisine which covers the topic in greater detail. Ibadibam (talk) 18:59, 15 May 2020 (UTC)

Re-Merge of California Cuisine proposed
I realize that the two articles were split in the last year, but the California Cuisine article is still no more than a stub. Also, "California cuisine" is most certainly a cuisine of California, even if it is also a cuisine popular outside of the state. I've proposed merging the two unique paragraphs of the other article back into this article as a section. --Orayzio 15:53, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

The two articles that is mentioned is virtually the same. They should be merged because together they make a strong article but separate they do not work. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.155.162.177 (talk) 23:26, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

Mexican Food
In So Cal, there's been a long, long history of Mexican food. It has changed over time, too, due to different waves of immigration from different regions of Mexico. Additionally, some Mexican foods common in the US, like burritos, are not well known, or known at all, in Mexico.

An old Mexican restaurant from the mid 20th century, like El Torito, El Tepeyac, El Cholo, or the Mexicali Rose, serves food in a northern Mexico style, and Americanized. Fast food joints from the 60s, like Taco Bell, were often operated by Anglos, and serve(d) a hybridized style, and often sold hamburgers as well. New waves of migrant workers and immigrants in the 60s and 70s from different regions brought different styles, so today, Baja, Michoacan, Oaxacan, and Yucatecan styles are available, if not widespread. Newer restaurants established in the 1980s, like King Taco, and the thousands of taco stands and trucks, sell a taco unlike the Taco Bell taco (the hamburger meat taco). The new emergent trend is for people from Southern Mexico and Central America to introduce more tropical / equatorial styles of food. The Central Valley, NorCal, and SoCal have evolved their own versions of the burrito, which isn't really Mexican food. Today, with the large number of immigrant working class Latin Americans, street vendors have become common, selling things like fruit, tacos, paletas, corn on the cob, and juice. Tamales are widespread in America, and their day-to-day consumption here has caused immigrants to eat it as a normal meal, not just during Christmas. New foods, like nachos and jalapeno poppers have been devised. Old foods, like churros, have become mainstream.

Also, in the past 20 years, kitchens in California have been staffed by a growing number of Mexican immigrants. They are preparing different styles of food, mostly not "Mexican". Their significance is that they will influence not only Californian food, but food in Mexico as well.

While many types of Mexican food are represented in California, what's most interesting is how people of Mexican descent (and non-Mexicans) have invented new foods, new habits, and new traditions in California, based on Mexican cuisine.

Additionally, there are many foods which have become associated with Mexican Americans. These include chili fries, pizza, nachos, ramen, pastrami, Japanese beef bowl, pho, funnel cake, and pasta (fideo). In effect, they've been adopted into the ethnic cuisine. How might that fit in? 66.245.193.86 09:42, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

Asian Food
It's easy to understate how important Asian immigration has been to California's food habits. Obviously, people eat a lot of Chinese food, ramen, and sushi. California was the entry point for many Chinese and Japanese people in the 1800s, and large ethnic enclaves developed for these two groups: Chinese in San Francisco, and Japanese in Los Angeles.

Today, California hosts large enclaves of Vietnamese, new ethnic Chinese, Koreans, Thai, Cambodian, and Filipinos. There are also substantial populations of Hawaiians, Chamorro, Indonesians, Malaysians, Laotians, Japanese, Okinawans, Burmese, and Taiwanese.

These populations influence mainstream eating habits. 66.245.193.86 10:08, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

Vegetarian/Vegan
I was surprised to see that no one mentioned a stronger influence of vegetarian/vegan diets on Californian Cusine resulting in more use of tofu or meat substitutes or that nasty fake cheese. I've lived in Northern CA most of my life and then lived in Florida for a few years and saw a drastic lack of vegan food there. It seemed to be more of a regional thing to CA since I didn't see it so much in other places while driving cross country and yet in my own home town I could name 3 cafes that were considered vegetarian/vegan eateries. Also the use of "organic", "gluten free" or "all natural" as selling points in descriptions of menu items.

167.88.201.100 21:07, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

"Cal Mex" and "Cal Med" ?
I've used these terms for years to distinguish between Mexican or Mediterranean (mostly Italian)food and these foods that are made with a California twist, if you will. California Pizza Kitchen would be a good example of California Mediterranean food, while Chilpolte might be a good example of Californian Mexican food. Another example is taco soup or shrimp cerviche. I'm not sure how much you would see these in Mexico, Central or South America or Spain or Portugal. Tapas is popular in the Bay Area from what I can see but I'm sure that with California ingredients and California creativity it is fairly different than what you find in Barcelona or Madrid. Thoughts anybody? - Kit Hill, Ed.D. LMFT — Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.109.222.250 (talk) 03:01, 1 January 2012 (UTC)

Fortune cookie
What about other California culinary inventions, such as the fortune cookie, or is this not the right article?

Comments on the comments
If you noticed I did some work on the page and put invisible comments in the page explaining why I made the edits. If you guys have some comments, I am appreciative of them.  Maccore Henni  Mii! Pictochat Mii! 21:19, 3 February 2020 (UTC) PS: Please also talkback on my page. Thanks!
 * I've changed your comments to maintenance tags, except for your comment giving rationale for deleting a paragraph (this would have worked better as an edit summary). It's ideal to discuss article improvements on a talk page like this, where comments are signed and easily threaded, and not use inline comments which are easy to lose track of. See Manual of Style/Hidden text for recommended best practices for inline comments. Ibadibam (talk) 22:38, 3 February 2020 (UTC)
 * Thanks, Ibadibam.  Maccore Henni  Mii! Pictochat Mii! 00:58, 4 February 2020 (UTC)
 * Oh, and by the way, did I fix the lead section? I also made edits there.  Maccore Henni  Mii! Pictochat Mii! 01:01, 4 February 2020 (UTC)
 * I think it's good, yes. When I, the lead was just a single, somewhat tautological sentence. Thanks for the reminder, I'll remove it now. Ibadibam (talk) 19:33, 5 February 2020 (UTC)

Wiki Education assignment: Writing 1 MW
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