Jeremiah Tower's California Dish and New American Classics

Year of Publication: 2003/1986
Recipes? Yes/Yes
Grade: B/B-

Let's talk about pretension. Pretension is a word often associated with Jeremiah Tower, who became head chef at Chez Panisse in 1973 and is often, although somewhat controversially, credited with much of the restaurant's success. Before Chez Panisse, Tower had very little formal culinary training, and much of his experience came from creating lavish dinners for his buddies at Harvard using little more than stolen Lafites and his extensive cookbook collection. (Doesn't sound like anyone I know, nope, not at all.) Tower's particular brand of cooking seems to be elegant and a bit pompous, sophisticated and highly particular in terms of ingredients; when he took over the kitchen at Panisse, he switched the music from David Bowie to opera and began creating menus modeled after the writings of Alice B. Toklas and Salvador Dali.

This pretension manifests itself in Tower's cookbook, Jeremiah Tower's New American Classics. Tower is often credited as being one of the leaders of the movement towards a new American cuisine, and although to a certain extent this book reflects that, it is interesting to note that it won the Beard Award for Best American Regional Cookbook. In actuality, Tower is one of the instigators of the California foods movement, and the confusion is somewhat understandable as California is pretty much the ideal place for an American food revolution to begin, considering their wine tradition and access to impeccably fresh fish and produce. Since the book was written, the main tenants of California cooking have swept the nation, and it's principles of lighter dishes and native ingredients are fairly commonplace in restaurants across the country. However, to claim that this specific regional cuisine is representative of a new American tradition is rather audacious considering the fact that at the time of its publication, many of the ingredients in New American Classics were not available nationwide—not to mention the fact that the pictures of the food are totally 80s-ed out and unappetizing to look at. (Let alone make—my attempts at Tower's recipes have all turned out goopy and pale.)

The fact that the title of the cookbook is completely misrepresentative of its contents is evidence of Tower's pretension, but it is also perhaps evidence of the fact that Tower isn't really meant to be a home cook. This is, at its heart, restaurant food, and, while I'm sure Tower is quite skilled at the stove—he wouldn't be so famous if he weren't—I'm not sure my version of any of his dishes would be something worth eating. (There is one recipe for a coleslaw that has tomatoes in it that is pretty good, but it is apparently a recipe he got from his aunt.)

All of this is a fancy way of saying I don't think Tower has much business writing cookbooks, but his memoir California Dish is an entirely different story. While not terrifically well written, they are bearable, but more importantly they celebrate a cooking tradition to which most people don't have access. Tower grew up well to do and internationally, traveling the world on ocean liners back when they could be the epitome of class and fine dining. He lived in Australia, America and England, and his interest in cooking seems to have developed from a teenage desire to rebel against the bland mid-century food boarding schools served in these locales. So he had 1. access to really well-prepared, sometimes exotic food, 2. but not regularly, 3. the means by which to purchase some high-fallutin' ingredients, and 4. the tradition of book learning, by which he learned French and how to use it (Escoffier, etc.). I feel like this sort of food often gets ignored now that everyone's Americanizing and down-homing their fancy food, and if I learned anything from my Obnoxious Elite Liberal Arts Education, it's that we've got to study the classics. I don't think that a culinary education like Tower's is available anywhere any more, regardless of money—where the hell are you going to find turtle fat these days? This is a necessary pretension; we don't have access to this sort of cuisine anymore and Tower's has concocted an important record of an American rebellion against French tradition. (Paul Bocuse, Jean and Pierre Troisgrois, Raymond Oliver and others, known as the “young Turks,” were responsible for a similar rebellion in France.)

Though the endless, untranslated menus get old and weary my poor little brain's limited knowledge of gastronomic French, California Dish is a great read because it shows how a new school, American cook can be entirely steeped in tradition and still create new and fascinating dishes. Just don't try them at home.

(By the way, Bernard Rivkin's French Menu Guide and Translator is a fantastic resource for those poor gastronomically inclined souls who, like me, accidentally took German (or Spanish or Norwegian or Swahilii or Chinese or Bengali...).