I swear we've done this before (and you Andy were the thread starter!):
Cioppino. Local lore has it that this tomato-heavy seafood treat, closely related to ciuppin, the fish stew of Genoa, was invented by Guiseppe Bazzuro, who turned an abandoned ship into the city's first Italian restaurant in 1850. Genovese fishermen used whatever fish and seafood they had left over. San Francisco's cioppino, in its finest versions, features local Dungeness crab.
The Mission burrito. In 1969, La Cumbre, in San Francisco's Mission District, started making the super-size whole-meal-in-a-tortilla. Restaurants across the country now serve this style of burrito, which can weigh up to 2 pounds.
Brewpubs. Mendocino Brewing Co. started the steamroller trend in 1983, the year California became the first state to legalize such operations.
Hand-crafted beer. The extinct American beverage was revived and reborn by Fritz Maytag at Anchor Brewing Co. on San Francisco's Potrero Hill in 1965; followers are legion.
Talking turkey. Willie Birds, the prized (and pricey) free-range turkeys, have been raised in Sonoma County by Willie Benedetti since 1963; the Diestel clan of Sonora has been trotting their primo birds through the Sierra foothills since mid-1900s. On the other end of the gobbler scale, Sonoma turkey breeder George Nicholas made it into the Poultry Industry Hall of Fame in 1983 for helping develop the broad-breasted white turkey that lives in its own no-fly zone, too top-heavy to get off the ground.
Hangtown Fry. Stories abound about the provenance of this omelet-like concoction made of eggs, bacon and oysters, but there is no question that it originated in Gold Rush days, when all three of those ingredients were worth their weight in gold. The dish was refined by cooks at the Palace Hotel, and it's a favorite in Australia to this day.
Teleme. This rice-flour-coated uniquely American cheese, reminiscent of Italy's Taleggio, is credited to the Peluso family, who began to produce it in 1925 in Los Banos in the Central Valley, then moved to West Marin, only to return to Los Banos some years later.
Cookbook authors. Start with most of the area's celebrity chefs and go on to a bumper crop known nationwide: Molly Katzen, Joyce Goldstein, James McNair, Joanne Weir, Fran Gage, Paula Wolfert, sausage maker Bruce Aidells, Carol Field, Marie Simmons, Chronicle staff writer Janet Fletcher; Chronicle columnists Flo Braker, Marlena Spieler, Marion Cunningham; Wine Country entrepreneurs Carolyn Wente, John Ash, Maria Helm-Sinskey; chocolatier Alice Medrich, food science writer Harold McGee and many more.
African American first. In 1881, Abby Fisher, a Southern cook who plied her trade in San Francisco, wrote, "What Mrs. Fisher Knows About Old Southern Cooking." At a time when the country did not embrace diversity, a local women's group helped Fisher, an astute business woman who was not literate, get her recipes and culinary wisdom printed. It was the first cookbook by an African American.
Energy bars. PowerBar, launched in 1986, and Clif Bar ('92), were both born and weaned in Berkeley by athletes, for athletes. Despite many imitators, these two companies are still the industry leaders.
Rice-a-Roni. Psst, don't tell. The San Francisco Treat was actually born in 1957 in the Far East -- as in exotic San Leandro on the east shore of the bay.
The lemon drop. This '60-era drink made its spirited debut at Henry Africa's, coincidentally also one of the first, if not the first, fern bar. It's lemonade for over-21s: vodka, lemon juice and simple syrup, all in a martini glass rimmed with sugar.
It's It. The granddaddy of ice cream sandwiches -- oatmeal raisin cookies coated in dark chocolate and encasing rich vanilla ice cream -- was the invention of an ice cream vendor at Playland-at-the-Beach in the 1920s. It's still in commercial production.
Fortune cookies. Nope -- Confucius did not put his pearls of wisdom on little slips of paper encased in crispy cookie twists. Legend has it that fortune cookies were first served at the Japanese Tea Garden in Golden Gate Park by Makoto Hagiwara in 1914. They since have been mass-produced all over the United States; since the early 1990s, they have also been produced in China.
The martini. Anecdotal evidence has it that the basic concoction was invented just across the bay in the sober town of Martinez, hence its name. Others insist that a bartender at the Occidental Hotel in San Francisco first stirred (or shook) it up. Either way, it seems to be a Bay Area native.
Irish coffee. The first of these drinks -- the whiskey makes you drunk, the coffee sobers you up, or vice versa -- was mixed at the Buena Vista Cafe near the San Francisco waterfront in December 1953, at the behest of the late columnist and raconteur Stanton Delaplane, who had tasted such a drink at Shannon airport in Ireland. In addition to booze and java, the drink contains sugar and ample cream.
― gygax! (gygax!), Thursday, 29 September 2005 21:54 (twenty years ago)