Californian food is the best kind of food. There, I said it. And quite frankly, most people love Californian food as well, they just don’t know it yet. The main reason for that? California is such a melting point, that the so-called “ethnic” foods that people know and love are usually californified, as different cultures add their own pieces to the dish.
Take Chipotle for example. Chipotle has become one of the most popular Mexican restaurants in recent history, despite mainly consisting of Mission burritos. Burritos, in their original form, consisted of a few ingredients wrapped in a tortilla. Mission burritos, on the other hand, are typically logs of meat, rice, beans, cheese, salsa, and guac wrapped with a flour tortilla.
Another example is pizza. Pizza, while originally from Italy, came to America via Italian immigrants, and became a staple in New York. However, after it made its way to California, it got changed once again into a thin, crunchy, pizza, topped with “gourmet” toppings such as arugula, prosciutto, and various other fancy toppings.
Finally, the last, and probably most popular example, is sushi. When sushi arrived in California via Japanese immigrants, it consisted mainly of cuts of raw fish, rice, and nori, all of which turned off American palates. However, once a sushi chef supposedly subbed toro, a cut of raw tuna, for avocado, the california roll was born. The lack of raw fish, and the inclusion of avocado, changed the sushi game. California rolls gained popularity across the U.S. and Canada, and blazed its way to more hybrid sushi rolls, such as philadelphia rolls, dragon rolls, and my personal favorite, crunch rolls.
California food, despite not being well recognized as a cuisine, is easily the best cuisine, and is often intertwined with other cultures’ food cultures. To ignore the contributions California cuisine has made in the American, and global food scene, would be a mistake as bad as a Philadelphia roll.