The Lost Cuisines of California

Culinary Historians of San Diego will present “The Lost Cuisines of California,” featuring Richard Foss, at 10:30 am February 19, at the San Diego Central Library, 330 Park Blvd. Foss will address the question of why none of the cooking techniques or popular dishes of the first people of the California or Mission people survive, and how did the introduction of agriculture change their lives? What delicacies did the pleasure-loving Dons enjoy in their haciendas, and why did their cuisine die out so quickly after the USA annexed the territory?

Richard Foss has been writing professionally since 1986, when he started reviewing restaurants for a Los Angeles newspaper. He has contributed to more than forty different publications, taught “500 Years of American Food” and “America Fermented” at Osher Institute/UCLA Extension, and is on the board of Culinary Historians of Southern California. His book on the history of rum was published in 2012. “Food in the Air and Space” was released in December 2014. He is now working on a history of immigrant cuisines in California in conjunction with a museum exhibit he is curated titled “Cooking Up a New West,” which will open at he Autry Museum of the American West in 2023.