Cookbook: California Home Cooking

California Home Cooking

This cookbook was a Julia Child Cookbook Award Finalist in 1998.

A Finalist in the American Category

California Home Cooking
American Cooking in the California Style
Author: Michele Anna Jordan
Publisher: The Harvard Common Press

California Home Cooking's Tip:

California's Own Lemon

"In 1908, Frank Meyer, an 'agricultural explorer' employed by the US Government brought a lemon tree to California from Beijing. Its fruit was mildly sweet as well as tart, its skin thin, its pulp abundantly juice. Because its Chinese name was not recorded, botanists called it the Meyer lemon. Meyer lemon trees proved hardy and resistant to cold, but because they were vulnerable to a virulent form of the virus tristeza, they were labeled a public nuisance and scores were ripped out and destroyed. Several counties made planting the tree illegal, a restriction that remains today, even though the University of California at Riverside has developed a variety that is immune to the disease. Recently, the fruit, in season for most of the year, has been enjoying a renaissance among California chefs and home cooks."