Welcome to “Eating America,” a weekly cross-country culinary road trip. From New Orleans to Nashville to New York City, we explore America’s unique cuisines and hometown favorites through staff interviews, field notes, and delicious recipes. Read on for a chance to win a copy of our new The Complete Cook’s Country TV Show Cookbook.
Above: Cook’s Country California Chicken Burritos
Test Kitchen Search Marketing Manager Tammy Hui has a hard time pinning down Californian cuisine.
“Um… We put sprouts on everything?”
On the one hand, there’s an abundance of California-based chain restaurants and fast food joints.
On the other hand, west coast food culture has a movement towards locally sourced food.
Then there’s the scattering of immigrants who bring in cuisines from all over.
Ever since Tammy moved to Boston, she’s missed tacos and burritos, but also pearl milk teas and sub sandwiches from Togo’s.
Maybe that’s why, when trying to define Californian food, she ends up thinking about her parents’ cooking.
Tammy’s parents, who emigrated from China to the US in the late ’60s, moved to California in the early ’70s. They cooked traditional Chinese dishes but also flirted with Western influences. Tammy’s mother, for example, made a beautiful steamed catfish with soy sauce, sugar, black bean sauce, and scallions.
But her favorite from her father? Corned beef and cabbage.
“My dad always took over the cooking when we took ski trips in the winter. We’d visit Tahoe with a few other families. Corned beef and cabbage was easy to throw together and fed a crowd. One year, we had a blackout, and we were snowed into the cabin for a few days. All we had was a hot pot of corned beef and cabbage. It’s a dish I really like, maybe just for the memories.”
Above: Cook’s Country California Barbecued Tri-Tip
In their backyard, “something was always growing.” From orange and lemons to avocados and white peaches, Tammy grew up with fresh and plentiful produce.
She misses the farmers’ markets in particular, which are larger, more varied, and open longer and more frequently than their New England counterparts. California farmers’ markets have a social aspect, too. They’re crowded and bustling, full of nibbles to taste and sample. Perhaps this is the strongest impression California has left on her.
“In California, you can eat ingredients in their purest form.”
Above: Cook’s Country Green Goddess Dressing
All featured recipes in this post will be free through October 29, 2012.
Last Week’s Contest – The winner of our Regional Favorites: Maryland Cuisine giveaway is dgenti, who wrote: “With very rare exceptions, the only person I know who cooked tripe was my mom. On the rare occasions I smell that, I immediately am taken back to the family kitchen.” Thanks, dgenti!
This Week’s Comment Contest Giveaway – What ingredients most remind you of your hometown?
Let us know in the comments for a chance to win a copy of The Complete Cook’s Country TV Show Cookbook, which includes more than 200 great American recipes like Char-Grilled Steaks and Ultimate Seven Layer Dip.
About the Author: Elissa Bernstein
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Far and away Old Bay. I remember at our school cafeteria, there were more cans of Old Bay out than anything else, and they would take the Old Bay away as a “punishment” when people were misbehaving. Domino sugar reminds me of home, too, thinking of the big sign over the Inner Harbor.
New Mexico green chili and fresh tortillas.
The ingredient that reminds me the most of my hometown is maple syrup. When I was younger, my parents would take me to the local nature park where once a year they would make maple syrup from their own trees. They would cook up a bunch of pancakes and pour their own maple syrup all over them. You got to learn about how maple syrup is made and get to try it.
Wild rice.
I’m Cantonese, so I’d have to say fermented black beans. Some people think they stink, but I just love these stinky salty flavor addon ingredients! An American friend told me he uses black bean paste, and I was like, nah, gotta use the real fermented black beans to feel like home!
Navy Beans remind me the most of my hometown. There was an old, hole in the wall restaurant that only made bean soup and tiny (delicious) hamburgers. The soup was so flavorful and good- my dad says they never clean the pot so all the flavor just keeps on building (it also came with a pack of oyster crackers)! Sadly, this place has closed down, but every time I see a bag of Navy Beans, I think of my hometown and that delicious bowl of love! I’ve tried to recreate it, but since I don’t have a 50 year old pot of soup to add to, it is never as good as the Hamburger Inn!!
Being from California is has to be fresh avocados from our tree. They’re never bruised unlike the super market ones. We have so many we even make lime avocado pie! I miss them now that I live in Utah.
I’m from California, and in addition to avocados, the most familiar “California” food to me is artichokes. When we lived across the country, my grandma used to get them super fresh at farmer’s markets or roadside stands and ship them to us – we’d open up a surprise package left on our doorstep and find a box full of artichokes.
Mozzarella cheese.
In Utah: fry sauce! Funeral potatoes! Green jello with carrots!
Limes remind me the most of my favorite San Diego meal….FISH TACOS! Fish Tacos need a squeeze of lime. It is the first meal every time I go home to visit my parents.
asparagus! my city has an asparagus festival every year. fried asparagus is the best… i’m not quite sold on the asparagus ice cream, though my toddler enjoyed it.
Oink, oink, it has to be pork since I am from the midwest!
I come from a predominately Hispanic neighborhood so things like carne asada and carnitas remind me of home.
Scrapple. I’ m from a smalltown in Pa. And we would always get fresh scrapple in the Fall.