Table Of ContentMAKING SLOW
FOOD FAST IN
CALIFORNIA
CUISINE
Victor W. Geraci
Making Slow Food Fast in California Cuisine
VictorW.Geraci
Making Slow Food
Fast in California
Cuisine
VictorW.Geraci
IndependentScholar
Murrieta,California
USA
ISBN978-3-319-52856-4 ISBN978-3-319-52857-1 (eBook)
DOI10.1007/978-3-319-52857-1
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TomyfatherVictorGeraci,whotaughtmethevalueoffarming,food,
andwine
P : A P D F ,
REFACE ERSONAL ISCOVERY OF OOD
W , S T
INE AND ENSE OF ERROIR
“Parlacomemagni.”Itmeans,“Speakthewayyoueat,”orinmypersonal
translation:“Sayitlikeyoueatit.”“It’sareminder—whenyou’remakinga
big deal out of explaining something, when you’re searching for the right
words—to keep your language as simple and direct as Roman rood. Don’t
makeabigproductionoutofit.Justlayitonthetable.”
—ElizabethGilbert,Eat,Pray,Love
OverthespanofmylifeIhaveinherentlyunderstoodtheconceptofterroir
and cuisine and its importance to my existence. Yet, I have struggled
mightily with its nuanced meanings. As a young boy I remember Sunday
dinnersatmySicilian-bornAuntHazel’shousewith ethniccomfortfoods
likefennel,artichokes,wildgame,calamari,home-curedolives,homemade
pasta,saucefromhome-growntomatoes,allcookedwithagreenpungent
Sicilian olive oil, and cannoli and Fico d’India (cactus apples or prickly
pears) for dessert. Before dinner she carefully poured a little of our home-
made red wine on the clean tablecloth and then would gleefully declare
mangiare.Mylifeeducationoffoodidentityorsenseofplacehadbegun.
Myfatherwasatable-grapesharecropperinthesouthernCaliforniaareas
ofElCajon,Lakeside,andRamonainSanDiegoCounty.Hehadnoideaof
whattheformallanguageofterroirencompassed.Yet,heknewhowtouse
its mantra to distinguish his product from other central and northern
California Muscat and Tokay table grapes. He recycled old lug-boxes by
labeling over the corporate fruit labels that touted the greatness of their
various fruits and vegetables. His Witch Creek, V. Geraci, non-irrigated,
vii
viii PREFACE:APERSONALDISCOVERYOFFOOD,WINE,ANDSENSEOFTERROIR
mountain-grown, blue and orange label proclaimed his pride and joy. It
showed the specific location of the vineyards (Witch Creek—Ballena area
around Ramona, California) and informed consumers of the climate and
insuredqualitybyuseofhisname.
Tohelpsupplementmeagersharecroppingwagesmyfatheralsotended
smallpeachandplumorchardsforthesesame vineyardowners.Muchlike
today, state agriculture rules and policies, initiated by corporate growers,
cooperatives,andfederalagencies,severelylimitedhisaccesstothenormal
produce distribution system. It was there that he learned to depend on
foodiesofthe1950sthrough1980sthatactivelysoughtoutlocal,seasonal
produce. Dad developed a telephone and postcard system to notify past
customers when they could come to the farm to pick peaches, plums, and
grapes.His select pick-your-own weekenddayshad to belimited afterthe
California Highway Patrol complained that excessive traffic on country
roads presented a dangerous traffic situation. On my part I remember
grousing about the many middle school and high school weekend days
spent in a makeshift wooden shed directing legions of families out to
communewithnatureandbringhomefreshlocalfruit.
Childhoodmemoriesalsoincludedthefirsttasteofouryearly100gallons
ofhomemadewine.Myfatherwould,ingoodyears,raisetheglassofruby
red wine to the sun and with a grin on his face declare Gjaku i Krishtit
(Sicilian Arbe¨risht for Blood of Christ). The taste, location, celebration,
remembrances of homeland, and religiosity of food filled his heart. As a
southernCaliforniafarmingfamilyweembracedoursenseoflocaltasteand
itsabilitytotieustoanAmericanlandwhileatthesametimebondingusto
the far-off village of Piana degli Albanese, Sicily. My father spoke of soil,
land,topography,andhisfarmingtechniques(manyoldschoolItalian)but
therewasneveradiscussionofterroir.Iunderstoodtheimportanceoffood
toouridentitybutlackedthefoodielanguagetodiscussourformalterroir.
Thisrudimentaryarrangementwithfoodandplacecontinuedthroughthe
birth of my three sons and 20 years of teaching middle school in Santee,
California.
As a shift in life course I went back to graduate school to complete my
doctorate degree in American History from the University of California,
SantaBarbara.WhilecompletingmydissertationonthehistoryoftheSanta
Barbara, California, wine industry I spent a year as the tasting-room man-
agerfortheGaineyVineyardintheSantaYnezAVA.1Betweenresearching
and writing about wine and serving wine enthusiasts and tourists I slowly
learnedthevocabularyandhowtowalkthetalkofterroir.Tobehonestmy
PREFACE:APERSONALDISCOVERYOFFOOD,WINE,ANDSENSEOFTERROIR ix
textbookandlearnedcommercialknowledgeleftmewoefullyshortoffully
understandingtheheartandsouloffoodandasenseofplace.
ForthenextsixyearsIservedasanAssistantandthenAssociateProfessor
ofHistoryatCentralConnecticutStateUniversity.ItwouldbeherethatI
begantounderstandandfine-tunewhatIwasthencallingCulturalTerroir.
As part of my job I directed the Sicilian Initiative for the University and
traveledtoSicilynumeroustimeswhileIoversawanoralhistoryprojecton
SicilianImmigrationtoConnecticutandorganizedstudyabroadprograms
toSiracusa,Sicily.ItisherethatIrelearnedtherealimportanceoffoodand
placetoself,region,andnationalidentity.
I clearly remember on one Sicilian visit being invited to a local family’s
SundaydinnertomeettheNonathatIwouldinterviewinafewdays.Her
son-in-lawpickedmeupatthehoteltotransportmetothedinnerandon
thewayhisyoungdaughterconvincedherfatherthatwehadtostopatthe
newly opened McDonalds in Catania, Sicily. She wanted to get a Happy
Meal that she had seen advertised for weeks on television. Upon arrival at
Nona’s her son-in-law and I received a quick and very stern lesson on the
importanceofgoodfood,madeandservedwithlove.Itsentmebacktomy
days as a youth as I remembered my lessons in Cultural Terroir. Nona
would not allow the Golden Arches to become the sense of place that she
wantedforhergranddaughter.Toherfoodandplacewereinseparableand
anintegralpartoffamily,region,andnation.
Theclimax inmyfoodidentityjourneyoccurredashorttimelaterona
sunnyJanuaryafternoonasIsatinatrattoriaafewfeetfromtheIonianSea
in Siracusa. My mid-day meal of calamari arrosto, caprese salad, and local
whitewine became my definingfoodmoment.Past family foodeducation
coupled with my own research and life journey had sent me on a quest to
define food and wine terroir, sense of place, or identity or whatever word
onewishestouseandaskthequestiononwhethertheseslowfooddreams
couldbepossibleinafastfoodworld.
A few years later I returned to California for a job at the University of
California Berkeley as a Research Specialist for the Oral History Center’s
FoodandWineProject.Todaytheprojectcontainshundredsoforalhistory
interviews with California food and wine pioneers.Thistimemy academic
and personal understandings of terroir and place matured as I listened to
foodandwinepioneerspourouttheirheartsonthevirtuesoffoodasthey
definedthenewCaliforniaCuisineandwineterroir.Thesefoodandalcohol
peoplespoketomeoftheneedforplacedescriptorsinamannerthatfinally
begantomakesensetome,orsoIthought.ThreemoretripstoSicilyinthe
x PREFACE:APERSONALDISCOVERYOFFOOD,WINE,ANDSENSEOFTERROIR
last decade only served to deepen my interest and add more complexities
andnuancestomyquest.
My American-born father’s lifelong goal to travel to Sicily ended when
mymother’shealthdeteriorated.IdecidedthatifhecouldnotgoIwould
trytobringtheculturetohim.In2005myoldestsonMatthew,avideog-
rapher by trade, and I traveled to my grandparents’ village just outside of
Palermo to capture the land and customs for my father. The final edited
video included sound bites from an oral interview with my dad. We gave
him a copy of the video as a present for his 88th birthday and the final
product, not surprisingly, naturally centered upon food and agriculture.
Clips of churches, ruins, the village, and people interested him, but the
food,vineyards,wines,andmarketplacescaptivatedhim.Hiseyessparkled
ashewatchedclipsofartichokes,fish,fennel,cheeses,numerouspastas,fici
india, and goats and he kept repeating his long-shared mantra of “give a
Siciliansomelandorfreeaccesstoopenspacesandhewillneverstarve.”
As a boy I learned to enjoy farm-to-table cuisine and as an adult I have
studiedandinterviewedSanFranciscoBayAreapioneersdedicatedtoadapt
these same practices in an industrial food world. In October of 2015 I
attended a one-week Sicilian food and culture course at the Anna Tasca
LanzaCookingSchoolinSicily.ThisbookwasinpreliminarystagesandI
hoped to observe and relive a true farm-to-table experience. Since the
nineteenthcenturyFabriziaTascaLanzaandherfamilyhaveownedthou-
sands of acres of agricultural property in the rural Sicilian countryside
betweenPalermoandCatania.HousedontheTascad’Almeritawineestate
her Case Vecchio school teaches farm-to-table, or as they call it Cook-the-
Farm, techniques for a modern world. Students study Sicilian cuisine
through hands-on kitchen and garden workshops, lectures, local field
trips, and culinary journeys around the island. Every participant learns
howtousesustainablelocalagricultureandmarketstosupplytheingredi-
ents for the daily cooking lessons. Her techniques include tried-and-true
Sicilianrecipesastaughtbyastafftrainedinsustainablepractices.2
Yes,thefoodandexperienceswereamazingbuttheyonlydeepenedmy
concerns on whether America, or the world for that matter, could ever
entirelyeatthisway.Thisconcernisbestshownbyananecdotalobservation
fromaneveningdinnerwithallthestaffandstudentsfromPoland,Ireland,
Australia,andmyself.Ourunanimousconsensuswasthatwewerethelucky
onesthatcouldaffordtoeatlikethisandtoapersonwelamentedthatmost
of the industrial world had lost this personal attachment to the land,
farming, and food. We also agreed on the need for additional food
PREFACE:APERSONALDISCOVERYOFFOOD,WINE,ANDSENSEOFTERROIR xi
education as a political force necessary to nudge corporate industrial food
enterprises to do better. Rachel Laudan, historian and author of Cuisine
andEmpire:CookinginWorldHistory,putsitbestinherarticle“APleafor
CulinaryModernism.”Shereflectedthat“Theobsessionwitheatingnatu-
ralandartisanalisahistorical.”Shefirmlybelievedthat“Weshoulddemand
morehighqualityindustrialfood.”3Ifullyagreeandthuslayoutforyoumy
themeofSlowFoodMadeFastinCaliforniaCuisine.
NOTES
1. Victor W. Geraci. Grape Growing To Vintibusiness: A History of the
Santa Barbara, California, Regional Wine Industry, 1965–1995
(Ph.D.Dissertation,UniversityofCalifornia,SantaBarbara,1997).
2. Anna Tasca Lanza: A Sicilian Cooking Experience website http://
www.annatascalanza.com/index.php/en/
3. Rachel Laudan, “A Plea for Culinary Modernism: Why We Should
LoveNew,Fast,ProcessedFood,”Gastronomica:TheJournalofFood
andCulture1:1(Winter2001):36–43.
