California cuisine and just food

373 Pages·2012·41.495 MB·English

by  Fairfax, Sally K

California Cuisine and Just Food
Food, Health, and the Environment
Series Editor: Robert Gottlieb, Henry R. Luce Professor of Urban and
Environmental Policy, Occidental College
Keith Douglass Warner, Agroecology in Action: Extending Alternative
Agriculture through Social Networks
Christopher M. Bacon, V. Ernesto Mé ndez, Stephen R. Gliessman,
David Goodman, and Jonathan A. Fox, eds., Confronting the Coffee
Crisis: Fair Trade, Sustainable Livelihoods and Ecosystems in Mexico
and Central America
Thomas A. Lyson, G. W. Stevenson, and Rick Welsh, eds., Food and
the Mid-Level Farm: Renewing an Agriculture of the Middle
Jennifer Clapp and Doris Fuchs, eds., Corporate Power in Global
Agrifood Governance
Robert Gottlieb and Anupama Joshi, Food Justice
Jill Lindsey Harrison, Pesticide Drift and the Pursuit of Environmental
Justice
Alison Alkon and Julian Agyeman, eds., Cultivating Food Justice: Race,
Class, and Sustainability
Abby Kinchy, Seeds, Science, and Struggle: The Global Politics of
Transgenic Crops
Sally K. Fairfax, Louise Nelson Dyble, Greig Tor Guthey, Lauren
Gwin, Monica Moore, and Jennifer Sokolove, California Cuisine and
Just Food
California Cuisine and Just Food
Sally K. Fairfax, Louise Nelson Dyble, Greig Tor Guthey,
Lauren Gwin, Monica Moore, and Jennifer Sokolove
with the Assistance of Matthew Gerhart and Jennifer Kao
The MIT Press
Cambridge, Massachusetts
London, England
© 2012 Massachusetts Institute of Technology
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form by any electronic
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This book was set in Sabon by Toppan Best-set Premedia Limited, Hong Kong. Printed on
recycled paper and bound in the United States of America.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Fairfax, Sally K.
California cuisine and just food / Sally K. Fairfax ... [et.al.].
p. cm. — (Food, health, and the environment)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-262-01811-1 (hardcover : alk. paper) — ISBN 978-0-262-51786-7 (pbk. : alk.
paper)
1. Food habits — California — San Francisco Bay Area. 2. Food preferences— California —
San Francisco Bay Area. 3. Gastronomy— California — San Francisco Bay Area. 4. Food
industry and trade— California — San Francisco Bay Area. 5. Sustainable agriculture —
California — San Francisco Bay Area. 6. San Francisco Bay Area (Calif.) — Social life and
customs. I. Title.
GT2853.U5F34 2012
394.1 ' 2 — dc23
2012008691

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
We dedicate this book to two who are building the next generation
in the district, Nikki Henderson and Anya Fernald, and to some of
the impressive shoulders on which they stand: Boyd Stewart,
Warren Weber, Ellen Straus, Phyllis Faber, Alice Waters, Sibella Kraus,
Sue Conley, Peg Smith, Ellie Rilla, and David Evans.

Contents
Series Foreword ix
Foreword xi
Acknowledgments xv
1 Celebrating a Community? 1
I Making a Place for Just Food 11
2 Framing Alternative Food 13
3 California Agriculture and Conventional Food 35
4 The Discontents 69
II Waves of Innovation in the Bay Area Alternative Food
Community 89
5 A Civic Culture of Parks, Planning, and Land Protection 91
6 Radical Regional Cuisine 107
7 Maturing the District 135
8 Food Democracy and Innovation 175
9 Conclusion: The District and the Future of Alternative Food 223
Notes 235
Bibliography 281
Index 339

Series Foreword
I am pleased to present the ninth book in the Food, Health, and the
Environment series. This series explores the global and local dimensions
of food systems and examines issues of access, justice, and environmental
and community well-being. It includes books that focus on the way food
is grown, processed, manufactured, distributed, sold, and consumed.
Among the matters addressed are what foods are available to communi-
ties and individuals, how those foods are obtained, and what health and
environmental factors are embedded in food system choices and out-
comes. The series focuses not only on food security and well-being but
also on regional, state, national, and international policy decisions and
economic and cultural forces. Food, Health, and the Environment books
provide a window into the public debates, theoretical considerations, and
multidisciplinary perspectives that have made food systems and their
connections to health and environment important subjects of study.

Robert Gottlieb, Occidental College
Series editor