California cuisine
California cuisine is a cuisine marked by an interest in “fusion”— integrating disparate cooking styles and ingredients— and which, out of respect for the state’s health-conscious tradition, tends to produce food which is fresh and/or lean, rather than manufactured and/or fried.
Common ingredients
California cuisine adapts old world and far east cooking techniques to the ingredients available in California. Many dishes include avocado, artichoke, citrus fruits, almonds, and mushrooms. Rice and pasta replace the potatoes and corn more commonly seen as the main starch in American cuisine.
Due to California’s long coast with the Pacific Ocean, the use of seafood is quite common, especially abalone, Dungeness crab, squid and Pacific salmon. Beef, turkey, and chicken are the most commonly used meat and poultry, with lamb and pork used with less frequency.
California has a large Asian population, and California cuisine has adopted many ingredients and spices common to East Asian cuisines, such as bok choy, sesame, ginger, tofu, and curry.
Various cities and towns in California are well known for particular agricultural items, such as garlic in Gilroy and artichokes in Castroville, and accordingly, these ingredients are well represented in those locations.