Alice Waters: Mother of American Food

Long before “organic” or “locally grown” became part of the vernacular, there was Alice Waters. Forty years ago she was at the forefront of the movement which now informs the decisions many of us make about what we eat.

Alice Waters opened Chez Panisse in a house in Berkeley, Calif., in 1971. Credit: Wikipedia

Waters’ food awakening came while in college, when she left the University of California, Berkeley, for a semester to study abroad in Paris. She shopped for local produce and prepared fresh foods simply to enhance the experience of the table. She brought this style of food preparation back to Berkeley, where she popularized the concept of market-fresh cooking with the local products available to her in Northern California.

Alice Louise Waters (born in 1944) is the owner of Chez Panisse, a Berkeley, California, restaurant which she has owned and operated since 1971. It is famous for its organic, locally-grown ingredients and for pioneering California cuisine. It has consistently ranked among the World's 50 Best Restaurants.

Alice Waters today. Credit: Chez Panisse. (The thing that strikes me about this picture. She was born in 1944, making her 68 years old. She doesn't look a day over 40. Now if that's not a recommendation for healthy eating I don't know what is!)

Waters has been cited as one of the most influential figures in food in the past 50 years, and has been called the mother of American food. She is currently one of the most visible supporters of the organic food movement and a proponent of organics for over 40 years. Waters believes that eating organic foods, free from herbicides and pesticides, is essential for both taste and the health of the environment and local communities.

She maintains a culinary philosophy that cooking should be based on the finest and freshest seasonal ingredients that are produced sustainably and locally. She is a passionate advocate for a food economy that is “good, clean, and fair.” Over the course of nearly forty years, Chez Panisse has helped create a community of scores of local farmers and ranchers whose dedication to sustainable agriculture assures the restaurant a steady supply of fresh and pure ingredients.

In addition to her restaurant, Waters has authored several books on food and cooking, including Chez Panisse Cooking (with Paul Bertolli) and The Art of Simple Food. She is one of the most well-known food activists in the United States and around the world.

It was noted by Garrison Keller today during his “The Writer’s Almanac” broadcast on National Public Radio that a meal at Chez Panisse in 1971 cost $3.90; today a similar meal costs about $100.

Out of curiosity, I went to the Chez Panisse web page and found this week's menu. Oh my, these foods sound so delicious, but the prices! No one ever said organic was cheap.

Chez Panisse

Downstairs Dinner menus for the week of August 27-September 1, 2012

Monday, August 27 $65

Green bean and tomato salad with anchovies and fresh coriander seeds

Saumon au gros sel: King salmon baked in rock salt with salsa verde,

eggplant caponata, and fresh cranberry beans

Plum gelée with lemon verbena parfait

Tuesday, August 28 $250 Celebrating 41 Years of Chez Panisse

Benefit for the Edible Schoolyard Project featuring Kermit Lynch wines

Apéritif Alice

Salade de tomates à la niçoise

Niçoise style summer tomato salad with black olives

Soupe de poisons

Fish and shellfish soup with garlic and tomatoes with wild fennel

Les grillades de pigeons, gratin dauphinois, et salade de mesclun

Paine Farm squab over vine cuttings with potato gratin and mesclun

Trois glaces de fruits dété

White peach sherbet, plum sherbet, and mulberry ice cream

peach sherbet, plum sherbet, and mulberry ice cream

Wednesday, August 29 $85

Cucumber, green bean and pickled chanterelle salad with mint and crème fraîche

Petrale sole à la marinière

Spit-roasted Becker Lane pork loin with sage and tomato sauce, fresh shell beans,

 grilled peppers, and zucchini gratin

Summer berry meringue with Meyer lemon gelato

Thursday, August 30 $85

Summer squash tart with pancetta and wild rocket salad

Northern halibut bourride with chanterelles and thyme

Grilled Salmon Creek Ranch duck breast with red wine sauce, roasted figs,

and braised Caroselli cucumbers

Raspberry soufflé

Friday, August 31 $100

An apéritif

Grilled Monterey Bay squid and Rossa di Milano onions with Meyer lemon salsa

Friture of squash and squash blossoms with tomato coulis

Bolinas grass-fed beef tenderloin à la ficelle with sauce piquante,

Annabelles fresh flageolets, and wild mushrooms

Gâteau glacé with nectarine, raspberry,

 and Muscat de Beaumes-de-Venise ice creams

Saturday, September 1 $100

An apéritif

Local albacore tuna and tomato salad with green olive salsa and aïoli

Fresh shell bean and shallot soup with chanterelle mushrooms and rosemary

Grilled Watson Ranch lamb with garlic and anchovy sauce, eggplant confit,

fingerling potatoes cooked in the coals, and mesclun

Black Mission fig feuilleté with anise ice cream

If I'm in Berkeley, perhaps I'll go by Chez Panisse. Lunch, maybe?