Is There a "Pacific Northwest Cuisine"?

[Tom Armitage]

When chowhounds and others ask me where they should eat in Los Angeles or Seattle (the two cities about which I know the most), my usual approach is to try to figure out what kind of food they can’t get at home. For someone visiting Los Angeles from New York, for example, my recommendations would include a Oaxacan or other regional Mexican restaurant and a Thai restaurant. Why recommend an Italian restaurant when New York is awash with great Italian restaurants? It’s easier for me to follow this approach when recommending Los Angeles restaurants, than when recommending Seattle restaurants. Although Seattle has some great places to eat—-Salumi, Harvest Vine, and Malay Satay Hut spring to mind—-it doesn’t have unique strength in any particular ethnic cuisine. So what about restaurants serving so-called “Pacific Northwest cuisine” as a unique Northwest experience? What exactly is “Northwest cuisine” and how is it different from other types of food?

One way of distinguishing any regional cuisine is by local ingredients. For the Pacific Northwest this would include Pacific salmon, Pacific oysters, Dungeness crabs, and other local seafood; hazelnuts; apples; huckleberries and other indigenous wild berries. But is use of these local ingredients enough to create a unique regional cuisine? I don’t think so, especially in our present day and age when modern transportation methods make “local ingredients” available just about everywhere. Take blue huckleberries, for instance. I’ve seen them used as an ingredient in restaurants in New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles, and lots of other cities. Ditto with the other “Pacific Northwest” ingredients listed above.

So, if it’s not the uniqueness of the local ingredients, is there some other defining feature to “Northwest cuisine”? What about the “light” style of cooking that emphasizes the natural qualities of foods, avoids fat, salt, and heavy sauces, and doesn’t “overcook” food? This may be part of the equation, but it doesn’t distinguish Northwest cuisine from, say, California cuisine, French nouvelle cuisine, or, in general, the current “eating-light” trend.

Given this ambiguity, does it make sense to recommend a restaurant that purports to specialize in “Pacific Northwest cuisine” as a unique Seattle experience? I’ve come to the conclusion that it doesn’t. On a recent Chowhound recommendation, for example, I included Bruce Naftaly’s Le Gourmand on my list for its “Northwest cuisine.” Another Chowhound responded to my list, generally agreeing with most of my recommendations, but disagreeing that Le Gourmand should have been included. Thinking back on my last meal at Le Gourmand, I had to agree that, although generally good, the food wasn’t brilliant or exciting. I had wanted to include on my list a restaurant serving “Pacific Northwest cuisine,” but Le Gourmand was a stretch, and I frankly knew it at the time. Which raises the question: are there any restaurants specializing in “Northwest cuisine” that deserve to be on the same list with, say, Salumi or Harvest Vine? Probably not. Tom Douglas is another apostle of Northwest cuisine, but none of his restaurants, to my mind, represent a unique Seattle experience.

One chef associated with “Pacific Northwest cuisine,” Caprial Pence, doesn’t put much stock in the label. In her words: “I did some work with a woman who’s doing her thesis on Northwest food, and she kept asking me if there was a Northwest cuisine. I said no. I think a cuisine is dictated by specific dishes that have been made for years and years, and there just aren’t dishes like that here.”

In short, it seems to me that a lot of so-called “regional cuisines” are more of a marketing ploy than a meaningful description of a truly unique, distinguishable cuisine. Lately I’ve run across references to “New Maine cooking” and “wine-country cuisine.” This may help market new cookbooks or convince restaurant patrons that they’re getting a “unique” experience. But my present thinking is that references to a regional cuisine, at least in the United States, are often more hype than help.

What do you think? Am I losing the forest for the trees? Is there a unique “Pacific Northwest cuisine”? If so, what is it, and what restaurants serve the best “Northwest cuisine,” where the food is so good and so unique that someone from New York or Chicago wouldn’t want to miss the opportunity to have a meal there?

[Rocky]

I agree that modern transportation has made regional ingredients a much rarer thing to find only within an ingredients region of origin. However, some things are just better where they come from, there is greater abundance to choose from and so ensure better quality, also some items are more obscure, after all would you expect a chef or sommelier on the east coast or in California to recommend a wine from the northwest on a regular basis. Proximity does lend a certain familiarity to ingredients and locally popular techniques that leads to more innovation or better results.

Alder planking for example, while this is a process that is becoming more and more common around the country, I think that it is definitely more polished here and there are more variations on the theme that have been made possible by close proximity for an extended period of time. Perhaps regional cuisine should not be restricted to just ingredients and techniques, but also attitudes and atmospheres. After all the vast majority of restaurants are much more relaxed and casual than elsewhere. Special requests are not automatically met with disdain or frowns, and for the most part service is friendly and not stuffy. Just my two cents.

[Tom Armitage]

I agree with much of what you say, Rocky, at least in theory. But then I'm faced with the difficulty of practical application. Take fish, for example. If Seattle had day fishermen (fishermen who bring in their catch the same day as it's caught), then I'd suggest that people patronize the Seattle restaurants that feature fresh-off-the-boat fish on their menus (assuming it's properly cooked, of course) to experience our local seafood at its best. But in the age of large commercial fishing vessels and seafood distributors, I'm not sure that the Pacific Northwest salmon (often from Alaska) served in a Seattle restaurant is necessarily fresher than that served in a good Los Angeles restaurant, like Water Grill. I also agree that, in general, the dining experience in Seattle is more informal and relaxed than in other uban venues. But this doesn't lead me to any particular restaurant recommendations.

There are, I suppose, a handful of "unique" Pacific Northwest eating experiences in Seattle. In my previous recommendation, I suggested that the visitor go to Elliott's Oyster House to sample the huge variety of Pacific Northwest oysters, much greater than what is available in oyster bars outside of Seattle.

Where would you suggest that out-of-state visitors go to experience the "uniqueness" of Seattle cuisine? For instance, where should they go to experience alder-planked salmon?

[Rocky]

Tom, I know what you mean about the practical applications of the fresh fish idea here and the lack of day fishermen. When I lived in California I would go down to the dory fishermen's market at Newport Beach to pick up fish and there would be many chef's there as well, the closest we come here is Fisherman's Terminal where sometimes it's close to that fresh but not quite. As far as a recommendation for something uniquely Seattle, I guess I would recommend Elliot's also for the same reasons and Ray's Boathouse, especially the cafe upstairs, doubly so in the summer when the deck is open.

[Robert]

I gotta respect the opinion of anyone for whom the three Seattle restaurants that first spring to mind are Salumi, Harvest and Satay. I couldn't have put it better. I'd tell the NYers to go eat standing up at Ivar's or, better yet, at Little Chinook at Fisherman's Terminal. Neither is grande cuisine, but both are representatively regional, I think. (I DEFINITELY would not tell them to go to Ray's, and ESPECIALLY not upstairs. Twenty- five years ago, maybe, but not today. Sigh. IMHO.) Perhaps the best way to guide such out-of-towners would be to the casual, breathtaking, holes-in-the-wall that they can just hop into amidst sight-seeing. Bakeman's, Zaina and Number One Teriyaki downtown spring to mind, as well as El Puerco Lloron (to crib from a recent post), and of course the pig shop on 2d S. Ext. Though none of these are induplicable (<---?) experiences, they will make the visitor remember Seattle fondly.

[Fritz]

I am not sure if the intention of the initial post was to identify what cuisines could be considered authentic PNW, or if it was an effort to find a restaurant that serves such food, or a bit of both. In my humble opinion, having been born/raised in Seattle and grandparents from both parents also born/raised in PNW (even 5th generation on one side) if I look back to my upbringing here it may yield some useful clues. Well first I am thinking that the older generation didn't eat out at restaurants much, unlike in the South where there was a large servant class and everyone was having catered affairs, or in big cities where there was lots of cash, in PNW you may have been lucky enough to have a job building airplanes or cutting trees. No while linen dinners, folks. Any establishment of that nature is just by definition not native PNW. OK, here are two things I have to suggest in terms of cuisine:

1. Mushrooms. I think people from all over the world buy Washington mushrooms, for good reason. Top quality. My dad wolfs them down just like his parents, and so does my mom. Shroom heads, all of them.

2. Salmon. Both my grandfathers, and lots of uncles, used to go on annual trips to Westport to ride the high seas looking for fish on charter boats. Bring home a few big ones and take them to Caveman Kitchen in Kent to have them smoked. Then shove it in the fridge and eat it just like that, put big chunks in your mouth and enjoy, that's it. Send your kid to school with some chunks in a ziplock for lunch, along with a little fresh milk from Smith Brothers. Catch it. smoke it. eat it.

My $0.02 on PNW authentic cuisine.

[Hunter]

Although I agree to a point, salmon and shrooms are not uniquely PNW. Look at Canadian salmon (Nova Scotia for example) and mushrooms are, for lack of a better term, all over the place.

I agree with the intent of the post, that is what PNW is to you but I just don't think we can claim mushrooms ans salmon as uniquely PNW.

[Nick]

I think it's fallacious to confuse *an* ingredient with a cuisine. Cuisines are more abstract. It's always going to be nearly impossible to reduce a cuisine to a set of ingredients or techniques. Try to do that to Mexican and you'll find yourself wondering how it differs from Indian. They often use very similar techniques and spices their dishes. What's the difference between a mole and a curry? Chiles? No, if you've ever had Southern Indian, especially, you'd be drinking pitchers of water denying that difference. There is a difference, but it's not reducible to an ingredient or a technique. Every country even has a tortilla of some kind. It's how it all goes together, and it ends up being more about an abstract notion, concept, impression, whatever, that people have when they communicate about Northwest Cuisine. Like obscenity, you know it when you see it.

It takes experience to understand, however. You can give direction by talking about techniques and ingredients and specific dishes, but that doesn't truly communicate the meaning of "NW Cuisine". You have to use it, experience it and its alternatives, and when you talk about it with others who've experienced it and the alternatives, you will suceed and fail in your use of the term, defining it better in your mind all along.

But the word has meaning. People use it and attribute it. It is meaningful.

[Tom Armitage]

You make a lot of interesting points. I agree that a regional cuisine is not reduceable to either ingredients or techniques, or both. But I'm still not persuaded that there is a "Northwest cuisine." I agree that regional cuisine has to do with an identifiable "style." I bet that any knowledgeable eater, faced with a blind tasting of three dishes--one Italian, one Mexican, and one Thai--could tell which is which. But would that same person facing a blind tasting of three dishes--one "Northwest cuisine," one "California cuisine," and one "New Maine cuisine"--be able to tell which is which? I think the odds are considerably less. If I'm right about this, it undermines the "I-know-it-when-I-taste-it" argument. Maybe Caprial Pence comes closest in saying it has to do with specific dishes. I have difficulty in identifying any specific dish that is unique to "Pacific Northwest Cuisine" in the same way that a Mole Negro is identifiable to Oaxaca.

[ironmom]

I've refrained from posting on this thread previously, as I am outsider, but I think that you should be aware that to this Mainer, "New Maine cuisine" is a meaningless term. I've lived in Maine for most of my life, and I never heard of it til this thread. Maybe it refers to the cooking of chefs at selected elite restaurants, or one particular chef who has written a cookbook about their own cooking, but there really isn't anything I could even guess at as such. Must be, um, seafood? blueberries?

But if it only exists at a few restaurants (or one), and nobody cooks or eats it at home by choice, is it even a local or regional cuisine?

[Tom Armitage]

I came across the term “New Maine cuisine” in several places. One was in the Maine Compass Guide, Third Edition, by Charles C. Calhoun, which referred to “great restaurants, from lobster shacks to New Maine cuisine.” Another reference was in an article titled “Food of Place” by Marina Wolf (“chefs in New England are talking seriously about ‘New Maine Cooking’”). I lifted the Caprial Pence quote in my original post from this interesting and provocative article, for which I’ve provided a link below.

Link: http://www.metroactive.com/papers/son....

[ironmom]

Your link doesn't work.

Nobody uses that term here. It has no real world meaning. Just a marketing phrase. In fact, it sounds like the title of a cookbook by one chef based on their own cooking, just like cookbooks that have the word "bible" in their title. But a good marketing phrase, as you point out, it is catching on, at least with travel writers.

I would consider "New Maine Cuisine" to be the food I cook every day, not some sort of fusion cooking based on local ingredients for the purpose of commercial sales. But obviously I am in the minority. Most of the posters to this thread did not even consider what they and their friends cook to be local or regional cuisine, though they may have been in the area longer than most chefs.

Regional cooking used to be what people in any locale cooked and ate. Now it has been elevated to museums of cuisines, and we are expected to go there to dine on regional cuisine. Home cooking is completely devalued, so its just as well to be satisfied with eating crap the rest of the time.

Stale fat-free muffin and bad coffee for breakfast, reheated pizza for lunch, *but* going to the most expensive restaurant in town for supper tonight, only the best is good enough for me.

[Nick]

Well, there have always been classes of cuisines, even within regions. The term "haute cuisine" itself sets apart all these high cuisines into one abstract set. Usually when you see the term "New" placed in front of a cuisine it's going to refer to an upscale cuisine. Usually it has to do with culinary school techniques applied to traditional or local ingredients with nice presentations and lighter recipes. Often it involves fusions of external cuisines with the local cuisine as well. For example, Nuevo Latino food mixes styles and dishes from South and Central America and the Carribean, often creating bolder and lighter options. But it hardly ever refers to what the masses eat on a day to day basis. Most people refer to that as "McDonald's".

[ironmom]

You may eat at McDonald's every day. You may feel that home cooking is by definition no better than McDonalds, but that's your definition. I fail to see that the cooking of a group of chefs, unrelated to each other or to the area they are cooking in, except for the purchase of some of their ingredients, constitutes a "cuisine".

[Nick]

So, living in the same area doesn't constitute a relation between the chefs? Here's a sampling of dishes from several places often referred to as NW Cuisine restaurants in Portland:

Laslow's
--------

* Pumpkin Custard Crab Cakes
* Wild Mushroom Ragout and Roasted Fingerling Potatoes
* Steamed Mussels
* Organic Greens and Grilled Bosc Pears Rogue River blue cheese, cracked hazelnuts and ver jus
* Maple Cured Yamhill Pork Tenderloin Fingerling potatoes, braised napa cabbage with pancetta, walnuts and Oregon blue cheese
* Chanterelle Goat Cheese Flan Ragout of anasazi beans and Autumn vegetables in mushroom broth
* Cherrywood Smoked Angus Beef Filet

Wildwood
--------

* WARM SPINACH & ROASTED APPLE SALAD
with smoky bacon vinaigrette, grilled onions & hazelnuts
* SKILLET ROASTED WASHINGTON MUSSELS
with garlic, sun dried tomatoes, saffron & grilled bread
* OREGON DUNGENESS CRAB & POTATO CAKE
on a celery root, fennel & apple salad with toasted almonds & aïoli
* PAN SEARED COLUMBIA RIVER STURGEON
with butter poached mussels on a lacy potato cake with garlic cloves braised & puréed
in red wine
* POLENTA CRUSTED CARLTON FARMS PORK
on bacon braised Willamette Valley kale with white butter beans, Manila clams & sweet garlic
* PAINTED HILLS BEEF TRI-TIP STEAK
on sour cream mashed potatoes in a wild mushroom & preserved lemon ragôut

Lucere
------

* dungeness crab chowder:
* butternut squash bisque with roasted apple and smoked chicken
* "moules a la crème": steamed mussels with white wine, shallots, creme fraiche and thyme
* "escargots bourguignonne" with wild mushrooms, smoked bacon, roasted shallots and red wine sauce
* seasonal greens with house dressing, toasted hazelnuts, fresh pear and point reyes blue cheese
* goat cheese ravioli with roasted peppers, winter squash, wild mushroom and don alfonso olive oil
* fennel dusted loin of Oregon pork with pear chutney, batter-fried zucchini and blue cheese bread pudding
* grilled chinook salmon with creamed leeks, roasted bacon potatoes, wild mushroom and pinot noir sauce
* grilled venison with port wine chestnut sauce, hubbard squash puree and tangerine roasted pear salad:

What's interesting, is that this does filter into more common restaurants, too. Burgerville is notable only because it does things like Blackberry shakes when they're in season, walla walla sweet onion rings, tillamook cheddar burgers, etc. Places like Beaches have salads incorporating blue cheese, hazelnuts, and pears. So does Pizzicato. Cedar-plank salmon is a fixture in many medium level steak houses and fish houses.

Personally, I cook like this, too. The best produce is often the most local and in season produce. The best fish is often the stuff that's local. I often buy local cheeses and breads, too, which do have their own character even when based on European loaves, etc. This affects my dishes. I cook nearly every night for my wife. And my dishes are probably quite similar to the NW Cuisine restaurants on an average day. Part of it is the culture, I think. My dishes come across more rustic, while still being light (unlike, say, midwestern or southern cooking). They're produce heavy and fish heavy. There are ethnic influences you find more locally than in some places, like Asian and Mexican. Tofu gets used on my meals way more than you'd ever see it in the South or Midwest or Rockies.

Obviously there's overlap. California Cuisine has a lot of similar fundamentals, especially its rustic nature and its emphasis on produce and light dishes. Also there's a lot of Asian and Mexican influences in California cooking. Plus, we're close enough that their produce is quite fresh for us, as ours is for them. But still. Look at these dishes at some California restaurants known for California cuisine (even when the main ingredients are similar to NW, the accents often distinguish them):

Chez Panisse
------------

* Roasted James Ranch lamb leg with olives and marjoram, cardoon gratin, and rapini
* Grapefruit, blood oranges, and candied kumquats with mandarin sherbet and Champagne granita
* Fried artichokes and local sardines with DeeAnn's lettuces
* Dungeness crab salad with endive, Meyer lemon, and chervil
* Terra Firma Farm blood orange, fennel, and new onion salad with marash pepper
* Pizza with artichokes, thyme and pancetta

[john dory]

i think pacific northwest cuisine is a marketing term devised by chefs and restauranters to define their product. all cuisines utilize their local produce, so that concept isnt uniquely northwest. there are no dishes that i can think of that say northwest, like clam chowder or johnnycakes in new england or jambalya in louisiana. maybe its because this region was colonized last. no chef here in the northwest is cooking any food that is radically different in style than what is going on in other restaurants across the u.s.

[Hunter]

Perhaps but even the examples you offer are from somewhere else - Britain, France and/or Haiti. We are a derivative country by definition, so our food is bound to be as well. We just put our own twist on it.
I believe the PNW is expecially good at (much like Alice Waters and her ilk) using local produce and product at its best.

[irwin koval]

i've previously posted on this topic that i feel it's based upon the initial promotion of or food by James Beard and Richard Nelson and checking through my bookcase i've come across several books on the subject."Eating Well" a guide to foods of the Pacific Northwest by "John Doerper" published in 1984. "The New West Coast Cusine" by "Linda West Eckhardt" published in 1985 and dedicated to the memory of James Beard, Big Daddy -Mama of us all."Good Food Guide" To Washington and Oregon edited by Lane Morgan originally published in 1992. More recently what i consider a special book "The Northwest Essential's Cookbook" by "Greg Atkinson" formerly executive chef of "Canlis Restaurant" who carried the torch and refined all the original Northwest Food emphisis began by "Peter Canlis" and a new to be published book, "Region of Origin: American Cookery in the Pacific Northwest authored by "Cory Schriber" Chef of Portland's "Wildwood Restaurant. It's true food and preperation is alway's being recycled but where else do you have Olympia Oysters, Singing Scallops, Gooeyduck's or "10" Pound Puffball Mushrooms, Scallop's that can weigh 4 to a pound, Fiddlehead Ferns or many, many other wonderfull food's then our Pacific Northwest and we should be entitled to call the care and preperation of our bounty "Pacific Northwest Cusine". Irwin Koval

[Nick]

Obviously "using local produce" would certainly not be enough to describe PNW cuisine. However, that's the beginning of a definition of nouvelle cuisine or new ... cuisine. The other part of a useful definition of nouvelle or new ... cuisine (the ellipses here being usually a region or established, traditional cuisine, such as New American or New French or whatever) would be that the dishes emphasize techniques for making traditional recipes lighter, less fatty, less heavy, brighter.

But, using specifically PNW ingredients or the set of ingredients that make up PNW's agricultural character is a beginning to defining NW Cuisine. As I've said, I don't believe such things are reducible to a set of ingredients or techniques, just like a genre of films is not reducible to a set of techniques, characters, or storylines. Those "ingredients" may be useful in beginning a definition, but they don't define it. An element of feel and experience is necessary. Just like you must have tasted salt to understand what is meant by "salty", you must have experienced NW Cuisine to understand what it is. And then, especially in something as complex as a cuisine, you must gain a *feel* for it in it's complexity and completeness. Like I said, if you just went on ingredients and techniques, moles and curries would be hard to distinguish. Ingredients: chiles, savory spices, stewed with meat over rice. What is it? Curry? Mole? Could be either. However, someone initiated and experienced in both can easily distinguish the two (allow for an 80/20 rule, however, where you don't expect perfection in distinguishing to establish identity).

[ironmom]

But in these areas you mention, the local dishes you cite rarely turn up on better menus in "new cuisine" restaurants, except in greatly modified form. Clam chowder was never upscale, and is certainly not new. The point of the "new" cuisine to to step away from the old traditions and use them strictly as a source of inspiration.

Chefs are remarkably mobile nowadays. Five years ago, more than half of them were cooking in a different region, and five years from now, more than half of them will be gone elsewhere. One day, cooking "new NW cuisine", the next, "new Virginia cuisine", seamlessly.
Because it's the same thing.

[Nick]

But that's an issue of practice, not of meaning or existence. I love Indian, but if someone had me, even with my eyes uncovered, taste 4 or 5 Indian dishes, I wouldn't be able to distinguish regionality, even Southern from Northern. I may be able to make a moderately educated guess based on its spiciness, use of meat, or something like that. But it would be very tough. If I went to Tibet and gave an average Tibetan a taste of several moles and a taste of several curries, I question whether they'd be able to really distinguish the two cuisines. I question whether they'd be able to distinguish many European cuisines in this same way, either. Nor would they be able to distinguish American regional cuisines. Heck, they probably couldn't distinguish American from most European cuisines.

But if you gave me the test of American regional cuisines, I could probably do fine. I'd have a tougher time with ones that I wasn't very familiar with, like East coast cuisines, but a relatively easy time with cuisines that have a decent amount of overlap, like Northwest and California. Where they overlap, would I be able to tell the difference? Probably not. But that's irrelevant.

[Tom Armitage]

Bakeman's. Of course! I recently wrote a Chowhound post in which I described Bakeman's as a "Seattle institution" (see link below). I haven't run across another place quite like it in any other city. I also like the idea of fish and chips at Ivar's next to the downtown ferry terminal. Not so much for the quality of the fish and chips (which is sometimes pretty good, and sometimes pretty bad), but for the view of the ferries and the Sound and the whole gestault. But I'd more strongly suggest walking along the waterfront for the view, and eating at Elliott's Oyster House for better quality food, especially the amazing variety of Pacific Northwest oysters.

For other "uniquely Seattle" experiences, how about a halibut sandwich at the Market Grill? I think I'd put that on my list. Matt's at the Market should also probably get a mention. I think places like Bakeman's and Market Grill are more "uniquely Seattle" than the high-end "Pacific Northest cuisine" restaurants like Le Gourmand or Tom Douglas's restaurants.

Link: http://www.chowhound.com/topics/show/...

[Nick]

Sure there's a Pacific Northwest Cuisine. It's young, but so is California Cuisine. So are "Contemporary/New French and American". Heck, American cuisine in general hasn't been a very identifiable cuisine except in the latter part of the last century. It's really been just a splattering together of ethnic, mostly European, cuisines that have been modified. What's American food? Hamburgers, hot dogs, pot roast, pizza, mac and cheese, tacos -- all easily sourced to other countries. New American is just French and Italian styles of cooking with the American palate and ingredients in mind, usually with some ethnic overtones.

The real test is whether the phrase is meaningful, whether Pacific Northwest Cuisine evokes an image in the mind of the listener, a response, or practical communication. I think it does. That's why you find it as a description in reviews, Zagat, and the like.

What do I expect from a NW Cuisine restaurant? Fresh fish, often a salmon or trout option, and things like mussels, halibut, etc. Seasonal fruits and berries like apples, pears, raspberries, blackberries, strawberries, huckleberries, etc. Nuts, mushrooms, squash.

As someone who's taken trips to other parts of the country specifically to eat at nice restaurants, I think there's a difference in the predominant dishes in nice restaurants, even the French and Italian ones, than you find in other cities like Chicago, New York, San Francisco, Houston, etc. There are dishes you are just unlikely to see in those places nearly as often, if ever. It's mostly ingredient based, but even the style of presentation (even the style of service) is different. North Westerners are much more rustic in their presentation and the way the foods are prepared. Architectural presentations like you'd find in New York are very rare.

I think of PNW food as rustic Italian/French/American influenced dishes with NW ingredients.

[irwin koval]

i was fortunate enough to participate at a meeting during New York World's Fair being held at the "Four Seasons Restaurant" where the topic was "The New American Food" during this occassion "Richard Nelson" and "James Beard" were acknowleged as being most responsable for making everyone more aware of "Pacific Northwest Cusine" from fiddlehead greens, olympia oysters, singing scallops, wonderfull berries,nut's,giant puffball mushrooms, jerked smoked salmon etc. Richard Nelson jokingly replied that your all just jealous that we write about the best. In retrospect it appears to me that our Pacific Northwest Cusine evolvement can be attributed to these two authors from our region who if you've read their cookbooks you're able to understand the association. James Beard once told me when we were having dinner with "Peter Canlis" at his restaurant in Honolulu "Peter" was the Ambassador of northwest cusine thru his restaurant's in San Francisco, honolulu and Seattle and as his menu's attributed the origins of his seafood, greens, meats etc to northwest suppliers and through the test of time that possably Canlis Restaurant in Seattle. Jakes in Portland and Tadick's in San Francisco deserve the allocade.

[Bruce Burger]

I think of two main things when I think of Pacific Northwest cuisine: fresh seafood (frequently salmon) and Asian influences (flavors and techniques). Also, of course, local produce in season. The restaurant I think of is Flying Fish.

This is similar to California cuisine, except California emphasizes more fresh fruits and veggies for larger portions of the year, and less seafood. And by California I think of northern California; I have no idea what LA cuisine is, though I suppose it has Mexican influence.

Of course these terms are defined by the people who use them; these are merely my interpretations of how most people use them. And none of these terms have historical meaning in the way that, say, "Cajun cuisine" does.

[Tom Armitage]

Despite all the interesting arguments to the contrary on this thread, I'm still not convinced that "Northwest cuisine" describes a unique regional cuisine. But I can say with absolute certainty that there is no meaning to the term "Southern California cuisine."

[Steve K]

Have read all of the, most impressive, posts. As a frequent visitor to Seattle - but not for awhile - the suggestion that Elliot's is most representative hits closest to home. However, we used to have a boat that we would moor in Bell Harbor Marine primarily to enjoy the cuisine of downtown Seattle. And we found ourselves visiting Anthony's on a frequent basis. Anthony's isn't mentioned often in most "recommendations lists" that appear on this board, but unless it has changed in the last couple of years, it is an underappreciated representative of "Northwest Cuisine". From "Mussels and Mashers" to planked salmon, their menu seemed to be "Northwest Central", and more interesting than Elliot's or a number of other restaurants in the area.

[jpc8015]

I think that in order to find true Northwest cuisine you need to look no furhter than what is being served around the family table. The food served at large family gatherings in the PNW is legendary; at least in my family.

When I was a youngster my entire family would head out to the Hood Canal. The boys would go down to the beach and get large clams. After letting these clams spit out, my grandma would shuck them open and fill the half that had the meat in it with corbread batter and set them battered side down in a well buttered cast iron skillet. Divine.

My uncle used to go fishing a lot. He would come back with the most beautiful steelhead. My mom would roast it up in the oven with nothing more than salt, pepper, a pat of butter, and a few slices of white onion.

In my teenage years I can remember heading to Westport during crab season. We would buy fresh caught Dungeness crab by the bucket full and cook it up that same day. Dinner would consist of nothing more than crab, salad, and bread. As an adult I have added a glass of Chardonay to the equation. Washington wine of course.

Another favorite outing was to the ocean beaches for razor clam season, which would last all of about twelve hours. Fresh razor clams dredged in seasoned flour and cooked in a screaming hot pan. They finish up in about 20 seconds. Outstanding.

All of these things are just a small part of what make up Northwest cuisine. You may be able to get similar dishes at restaurants in the Northwest and throughout the country. Seldom do they approach the quality of food I remember from my youth.