Connecting after tragedy
Even amid ruins through the centuries, cooking feeds the soul
Following the recent 7.1-magnitude earthquake in Mexico City, chef Gabriela Camara — who as a child experienced the 8.1 earthquake in 1985 in Mexico City that killed thousands — hosted a fundraiser for relief efforts at her San Francisco restaurant, Cala. At sister restaurant Contramar, which is located in Mexico City’s badly damaged Condesa neighborhood, Camara worked with employees to coordinate meals for volunteers and rescue workers.
More recently in hurricane-ravaged Puerto Rico, chef Jose Andres and his team from World Central Kitchen, a nonprofit founded by Andres following the 2010 Haiti earthquake, have been on-site working to feed thousands.
This week, as epic fires raged in Northern California, nearly every single Bay Area chef rallied in some way to help the people of Sonoma and Napa, whether through food deliveries, fundraisers or other aid.
These chefs, and others like them, are doing what they can to help these refugees of disaster who are in a seemingly helpless situation.
The same could be said of a group of San Francisco women back in 1906 who compiled a collection of recipes for “The Refugees’ Cook Book” following the infamous San Francisco earthquake that struck at 5:12 a.m. on April 18, 1906, and fire.
According to California food historian Erica J. Peters, the book was a tool for people to feel connected.
“Like they’re giving to a good cause by buying or producing something within their own skill-set. They don’t know how to build buildings, but they know how to make a cookbook,” Peters says.
According to the cover of the book, which is housed in UC Berkeley’s Bancroft Library’s 1906 San Francisco Earthquake and Fire Digital Collection, it was compiled by refugees “for the benefit of those who have lost their cookbooks in our great disaster,” although Peters points out that it’s not clear if that was reality or simply savvy marketing.
“A real refugee is not cooking in their tents; they’re getting served by soup kitchens,” says Peters. For those who still had a house standing, most likely it was their servants cooking in the streets with makeshift kitchen setups, because for weeks there was no indoor cooking for fear of fire or other disaster. Dinner would then be served inside on china plates.
Wherever people ate, one thing is fairly certain: Mealtime provided a moment of sanity and some semblance of normalcy during a very trying time.
“Food was the one thing that worked to make people feel the sky wasn’t falling,” Peters says.
Charity cookbooks, which experienced a big boom around the Civil War as part of fundraising efforts for veterans, were fairly commonplace at the time.
People’s attitudes toward food in early 20th century San Francisco weren’t that different from ours today, says Peters. There was a strong interest in fresh food, and thanks to heavy immigration, there was also a great deal of interest in cuisines from different cultures. The cookbook’s inclusion of recipes such as Italian Spaghetti and Spanish Meatballs reflects this attitude.
Take, for example, a recipe for Chippine, which from its description is obviously a variation of cioppino — a dish that remains greatly beloved by modern San Franciscans. First documented in print in 1901 by journalist Harriet Quimby, by 1906 the dish had already gained enough popularity to be featured in the cookbook.
The recipe reads: “Take a good sized solid piece of fish (bass or white fish) put in a pot with one can of tomatoes, one onion sauted in butter, two pepper pods, one bay leaf, juice of one dozen clams, cook briskly one hour; fifteen minutes before serving add one dozen clam bellies.”
“It’s a dish you make with what you have on hand. It’s not fancy food,” Peters says.
As San Francisco recovered from the devastation, food moved beyond sustenance and comfort. Beginning with the 1915 Panama-Pacific International Exposition, which served as a flag to let the world know San Francisco was back in business, local foods like cioppino, sourdough and chop suey played a large part in the city’s efforts to rebuild itself and woo hesitant travelers to spend time (and dollars) here.
As Peters puts it: “Food became part of the story of why you would come to San Francisco.”