What made San Francisco, whose beginnings were more rough than refined, become the food town that it is? The San Francisco Public Library has a new exhibit opening Saturday, “San Francisco Eats,” that tries to answer that, with images, menus, and documents from the city’s culinary past including this gem from 1906, a sort of tent-restaurant set up in the aftermath of the great quake. Curator Sheila Himmel tells the Chron, “We look back to the Gold Rush, which brought in all these, well, unencumbered men. They didn’t cook, they lived in boardinghouses, they often ate out, and the ones that made money wanted someplace nice to go and show off their new wealth.” Is that how it all started? Click through for a full preview slideshow of some postcards, photos and such.
Not shown in our preview below is a menu from the Palace Hotel for their Christmas dinner in 1910, which we’re dying to see.
The exhibition kicks off with a panel discussion Saturday afternoon in the library’s Koret Auditorium featuring the great Patricia Unterman, and “Bay Cafe” host Joey Altman. Details and other related event dates are here.
City’s food history on exhibit [Chron]
