Food Lit: San Francisco: A Food Biography

Nonfiction: San Francisco: A Food Biography by Erica J. Peters (2013). 
With guest author Erica J. Peters.

Highly recommended by Celia Sack, owner of Omnivore Books, San Francisco: A Food Biography will take us farther back into our city’s storied past than anything else we’ve read so far. I’m especially excited to learn about Native American foodways that predate establishment of the city itself, along with the flavors and traditions brought by early Americans and immigrants. How did those first people, forced to eat local and live off the land, survive in a climate that while temperate year round, receives no rain for nearly six months in a row? And what were the restaurants, cookbooks and recipes of olden-time San Francisco that modern food aficionados should know about? Besides the sourdough loaves and chocolate that lure tourists (but never locals) to Fisherman’s Wharf, I cannot think of a single one.

Independent Food historian Erica J. Peters, author and director of the Culinary Historians of Northern California, will join us to discuss her book. 

Food Lit meets every third Sunday of the month for casual conversation around 18 Reasons’ table, usually featuring the author or other expert guest, led by our fearless moderator-coordinator Heather Knape. We talk about food, flavors, farming, politics, life in San Francisco and anything else that can fit into two hours and connect back to our book of the month.

Please bring a dish or drink to share for our potluck lunch. Extra credit will be awarded for anything featured in the book or recognized as historically important to San Francisco or another Bay Area city. Remember, you don’t have to have finished (or even begun) the book to attend, our discussions run the gamut from sparking interest in the book’s subject to full on raging debates over writing style, flavors, the food system and other loosely related topics. If nothing else, we’re hoping to get you fired up and thinking about eating well.