Very unlikely when even the guy who copyrighted it said it is because of the climate
Hey!
Look at me staying out of this!
You are really getting old ?
Interesting and informative discussion. I am mostly enjoying everyone’s input. Neither Baja nor Mediterranean describe a cuisine, but instead denote a region. And there are typical food ingredients from these regions (think Mediterranean diet). I think that term Baja-Med to describe a style of cooking signifies to me the use of typical Mediterranean ingredients sourced from Baja and utilized in a non-traditional Baja Mexican style of cooking drawing on all the Baja California culinary influences. Typical Mediterranean ingredients like olives, olive oil, wines, etc can only relatively recently be sourced from Baja. And it is precisely because of Baja’s (and SD) Mediterranean type climate that these ingredients can now be sourced from Baja (and SD). When these ingredients are combined with other local Baja and Mexican ingredients and then prepared utilizing uniquely Baja Mexican combinations and techniques you have a modern and regional type of cuisine which for lack of a more concise term, I’ll refer to as Baja-Med. I may be completely wrong , but that’s my personal thinking anyway.
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Just think @honkman when you relocate to Boston you can argue about whether a place like La Brasa is Mexiterranean or Sonoran Moditional with … I suppose, yourself?
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Bajaston Cuisine?
Boaxican Cuisine?
Bos-Latin?
Beaner Town cuisine?
Massatteranean?
Mexi-Mass?
And my favorite . . .Massico or Massican!
Well put, RISD. I fully agree.
The question is if I will lose the argument
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Most married men lose arguments by default, so I suspect you will lose.
There are no winners and no losers in a debate like this. Even if you’re talking to yourself. Only an opportunity to come to a better understanding of each other’s views and thoughts.
I never realized how many times I was wrong until I got married and then the wife let me know. Wow, it’s a lot!
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So you all don’t armwrestle to find out who is right or wrong ?
There are three things that define the new Baja cuisine. First is that it’s basis and roots (raiz) are firmly entrenched in classic, historic Baja California culture and food. Second is that it includes newly introduced additional ingredients, preparation, and presentation influences drawn from the ethnically unconventional cuisines (relative to Mexico) of the Mediterranean states in Europe, and Asia. Third is that both the new and classic ingredients in the cuisine are proudly sourced locally from within Baja itself, which is at once both enabling and requisite. We’re fortunate that it’s possible to satisfy all three criteria in San Diego, but that good fortune rapidly diminishes as one moves further away from the Baja border.
The term “Baja Med” is copyrighted (or trademarked, not completely sure which), so while food writers are apparently free to use the term, and do, restaurants not owned by Chef Guerrero that are serving up this new cuisine can’t, not legally. Correct me if I’m wrong on that.
This is an unfortunate situation for restaurants that are trying to develop, promote, and expand upon the new cuisine. They can’t call their menu “Baja Med”, as catchy and widespread as that term might be. And they sure as heck can’t put up a sign with that on it.
So what to do? The term “Baja Med” has caught on, but since the public of course doesn’t know anything about the copyright issues, the whole new Baja cuisine movement is affected – at the restaurant level. The cuisine doesn’t yet have a well-recognized public-domain name that makes sense and is easy to remember – one that isn’t copyrighted – but it sure as heck better get one soon. That’s why I currently use a more generic expression, “Nueva Baja”, to describe it (a term that also tacitly includes Asian influence in addition to Mediterranean). Happy to jump onboard when someone else comes up with something better.
I love this kind of food. I hope that five years from now these questions and issues will have clarified and that there will be many more places like Bracero and Romesco to go to here in town.
Thanks again, DD, for the link you posted in your OP.
Baja Med also includes asian influences so there is no difference to “Nueva Baja”. And as said before you should really go out more to not try to create new cuisines when you just describe a particular style of a chef. Should we create a new cuisine for each high end chef who uses a very particular style ? How do we name Achatz cuisine or when Fox cooked at Ubuntu etc ?
Ultimately I think your problem is that you have a culinary inferiority complex regarding San Diego and desperately try to imagine/create something which doesn’t exists.
And I doubt that there will be many (if at all) restaurants following what Bracero is doing but that has nothing to do with type of cuisine but that upscale restaurants rarely start many copycats, e.g. there won’t be any J&I inspired restaurant, Providence hasn’t started anything related in LA etc
Rick Bayless just opened Leña Brava about a month ago. It was inspired by the food of Baja. It’s heavy on the seafood, but clearly, the food is NOT sourced from the regions around Baja or SD. RB is pretty well known for growing a lot of his own produce on the roofs of Frontera and Topolobampo and for sourcing local and sustainable products within a small radius of Chicago, which is hardly a Baja suburb. A lot of the food in Baja is cooked over open, wood fired flame. That is the only cooking method at Leña Brava. There are no ranges and no ovens, everything is cooked over their open flame units. This cooking method is hardly unique to Baja, it is, in fact, pretty common up and down the Pacific coast of Mexico, and if you really want to get common, Applebee’s is trading out all their charbroilers for wood fired grills…and you can’t get much more mainstream than Applebee’s.
RB has been enamored with Baja for a while now and Leña Brava is his attempt to mainstream the cooking style of Baja, and that is what it is, a style, not something new and different. I was not able to score a res when I was in Chicago a couple weeks ago, a friend and I even tried walking in, but to no avail (we ended up at Graham Elliott and had an excellent meal). But a Mexiphile friend who is also familiar with the cooking in Baja has eaten there and said it is a good representation of the cooking in Baja with, of course, the RB spin on it.
This sounds like a very interesting restaurant, one that I’d also try to visit if I were in Chicago. I’m glad to see someone of Rick Bayless’ stature introducing this style to the Midwest. I have no idea how much different, or in what way or ways any of his dishes would differ from their exact counterparts if produced in the SD-TJ area using locally-sourced ingredients. All that can be said, I guess, is that it probably wouldn’t taste exactly the same. I have to applaud his use of open-flame, which as you say is commonplace in Baja. The pictures on his Leña Brava website look sumptuous!
he space is actually quite small and dominated by a large bar.
There are no exact counterparts and why on earth should it taste exactly the same?!?!??? That’s pretty narrow and rigid, not to mention dull and boring. He’s doing his interpretation of Baja, not an exact replica.
If Red O (damn, almost called it the Red Onion) ever opens you may get a chance to try his take on Baja…
I agree with you, and have in fact been thinking about that since your previous post. No, it doesn’t need to be exactly the same. You’re right about that.
But that then raises the “authentic” question. I think that to have truly authentic food of any kind (French, Italian, Vietnamese) you have to go the source. So when we say that a local French restaurant is “authentic”, we mean that it’s an excellent simulation. But no, it’s not exactly the same as you’d get in France. That’s what has been one of the things I’ve found interesting during our many trips to other countries – what The Real Thing tastes like.
Look at how visitors think of the fish taco in San Diego as special, even though they can get one where they’re from, and it might even be better than what they ate here. They seek it out because they can get The Real Thing here.
Anyway, without even having been there I’d say that what Mr. Bayless is doing with Leña Brava is no doubt an excellent simulation of authentic New Baja cuisine. With his own personal twists.
And I’ve been looking forward to Red O for quite some time. And it’ll be The Real Thing, being as it’s here in SD.
Because even in France (or anywhere else) you will get never one “authentic” interpretation of any dish but many different variations. And you don’t have to gonto the source to get an authentic version but just have somebody cook it who understands the “fundamentals” of a dish even if he/she lives on the other side of the planet. And so there is no “The Real Thing” but many close but different variation of “The Real Things”
It is not a simulation of authentic New Baja Cuisine but the cooking style of a chef based on multiple influences (so no difference to Guerrero or. Plasenica and not more or less authentic than their interpretations
The menus at Red O and Leña Brava are quite different. Hopefully what we’ll get from Bayless in SD will be more like the latter.
Here’s the description of the food at Leña Brava, quoted from their website:
"Fire and ice have never played so well together. Leña Brava — ”ferocious wood” — takes its inspiration from the multicultural seaside elements of Baja California Norte, the region’s celebration of live-fire cooking and the area’s world-class wines.
The raw bar tempts with spicy aguachiles and unique ceviches while the kitchen satisfies with everything cooked on an open hearth and wood-burning oven. With one of the country’s best selections of mezcal and wines from the much-heralded Valle de Guadalupe, Leña Brava evokes the unique flavors of one of Mexico’s most vibrant regions"
If this isn’t “New Baja” cuisine, it’s definitely alta gastranomia de Baja. But the menu and photos on the website sure seem like it.
BTW, I’m not happy with my choice of the word “simulation”; withdrawn. Perhaps “representation” is closer to my meaning.