I understand your point.
But your point has been basically kaiboshed by @DiningDiva.
Two facts you can’t seem to wrap your mind around.
DD and I disagree on #1.
You really believe anybody can create in today’s world a completely new cuisine ? In that case, I might have bridge you will be interested in…
LOL. Is it the London Bridge in Arizona? Because that one’s really useful…
Well, a cuisine doesn’t develop immediately, but things do catch on when there are people behind it, like Guerrero and Plascencia, with the talent and the drive to develop and market a style that’s really different. We’re not talking a major cuisine, like Italian or French; this one is a very localized and very specialized breakout from conventional Baja food. But it’s distinctive and inventive, somewhat in the same manner as what you enjoy so much about J&I. Isn’t there a word for that, something like New Californian? Whatever it’s called, it’s a cuisine that didn’t exist 20 years ago, when we ate food that’s now sometimes referred to as “old school”.
A cuisine is a collection of dishes that share common characteristics. And, FWIW, San Diego doesn’t really have a unique cuisine; fish tacos are a single dish. Even this new Baja cuisine isn’t ours, it’s been imported. But I’m happy to see it arrive, being as I think it’s better to have a cuisine associated with one’s city than a single, humble dish.
delete
“My point was that both have “Mediterranean” embedded in them. Not something else. Both could have chosen any other catchy marketing name, but instead they both chose to use a variation on the same word. And why?”
Why? Could it be that Baja - and San Diego for that matter - lie at just about the same latitude as the Mediterranean countries and have a climate that is very similar? Or could it be it was simply a descriptive term that a lot of people understood and that could be used to describe their food
Yes, it could be either of those things.
I don’t think that “Mediterranean” alludes to these relative geographic locations, although what you say is true.
And yes, I think both are descriptive terms, but going further I think both suggest a departure from classic Baja food.
Actually according to Webster cuisine is - manner of preparing food : style of cooking; also : the food prepared
I was around with Michael McCarty unleashed Michael’s in Santa Monica along with the California cuisine. Never exactly understood what that was all about since it was more or less how we usually ate, just prepared better and more interestingly
I think the term has been used to denote a geographical comparison. It wasn’t random
BS
I think as Ipse mentioned a few times before the main problem seems really that you don’t go out much and have tried too few upscale restaurants. What you describe are not unique or new cuisines but just chefs developing their own style (which is very different to a new cuisine). One of the recent tasting menus with Foshee had beside meat and fish everything grown or foraged within 50 miles of the restaurant (as are many of the regular dishes). He would never describe his “cuisine” as New San Diego cuisine (even though I have seen it described in such a way) but just as his own style .Based on your criterias we should tell him next week that he should start to market it as a new cuisine he invented. The cooking of Cimarusti is unique but again he would never describe it as a new cuisine. When we talk with Blais about his cooking he would never imagine it to name it like New California cuisine (even though it is very distinct and unique) but just his style of cooking developed through many different influences. Chef Quineaux is one of our favorite chefs and we had many, many tasting menus with him and he always combined French technique with European/Mediterranean and Asian and Mexican influences (sounds familiar ?). One dish we had was a fresh made thick tortilla (one might call it sopes-like) filled with shrimps and bone marrow (he loved combining bone marrow with seafood) and some “creative” mole (sounds familiar with something from Bracero?). I guess he was just cooking Baja Med (he would laugh at this and just talk about chefs and different influences and styles) - ultimately it really seems that you don’t eat enough at more upscale restaurants, especially outside of SD to really be able to distinguish different styles and not name everything as new cuisine just because you haven’t experienced it yet.
Even Guerrero himself has said that the Mediterranean term comes from the same climate/latitude
Ha! A possible Eureka moment. Where did you hear that said?
It is just as DD said, the Med part is alone based on the similar climate, nothing else. I will try to find the article where he said it
According to Guerrero the “Med” part in Baja Med is simply the geographic description of a similar climate - “Then you have our Mediterranean climate, which produces the wine and the olive oil, the herbs and vegetables.” So nothing about ethnically unconventional influences you suggested in some of your posts before, just the climate.
Great article. Thanks, Honk. I don’t disagree with anything in it, but don’t see where it explicitly or even implicitly suggests that the “Mediterranean” in the term Baja-Mediterranean is due to the similar geographic and climate conditions. Including your quote.
I’ll do a second reading.
I think my quote is very clear that he talks about the climate as the reason for the Med part not influences by any particular cuisines from that region
We’re having a rough day over here on FTC, aren’t we!
OK, I’m done.
If you ignore all facts/quotes - yes we have rough day.
DC what part of the connection between Mediterranean climate and Baja Med don’t you understand? He may not have explicitly stated that the “Med” in his trademarked Baja Med label is a direct reference to the geographic area, but it is certainly implied.
What I don’t get is your stubborn insistence that there is no connection and that Baja Med is some sort of new fangled creation. Don’t get me wrong, I love eating in Baja, I think the food is creative, interesting, usually delicious and more than worth the border hassle. Diego Hernandez has challenged my palate at Corazon de Tierra, I wish Javier would put the quail he serves at Finca on the Bracero menu (when was the last time you saw quail on menu in SD), Drew Deckman has wowed me with rabbit and Jair Tellez has served me what may have been one of the 5 best dishes I’ve ever eaten…not to mention he got me to eat beef tripe and actually think it was good.
I like both Romesco and Bracero and I don’t even mind that they tend to be uneven because restaurants SOB are inconsistent as well. I’ve had both excellent and average meals at Mision 19. What they’re doing may be a little different than what SD is used to but it’s not unique. Take your companion and go eat in Mexico City…same concepts and ideas, different execution…modern twists on the standards or different applications using very traditional ingredients.
If you want truly unique go back and take a look at what happened when Spanish cuisine (heavily influenced by 700 years of Moorish occupation) collided with the pre-Hispanic cuisine. That’s the mash-up and what came out of that was unique
Thanks, DD. That’s a much nicer response than: “BS”.
Yeah, I get it. But sheesh! Don’t you even think that it’s possible that’s not the reason for the name?
Actually, my companion and I have quite a bit of experience with Mexico City food. She was born and raised there until she came to the US to study at Pomona College at age 18. She still has a number of friends and extended-family relatives in Mexico City (and, she reminds me, in Cuernavaca, Puebla, Toluca). We’ve been back, needless to say. And she has a history of the food there, then vs. now. We haven’t been to Baja as often as you, but quite a few times.
Mexico City is trending in the same way as Baja, but it’s not the same because it can’t be. In Baja, one force in the new cuisine is the almost religious adherence to only using local sources to the extent possible. And that’s one reason you’ll never be able to have food that’s exactly like that at Bracero anywhere else in the US, nor food like that at Misión 19 anywhere else other than in Baja. Because the necessary fresh ingredients just don’t exist in other parts of the country.