Ethnicities Obscured, Celebrated

Indeed, the authors occasionally engage in a kind of rhetorical overkill. At one point, the authors condemn former Times restaurant critic Ruth Reichl for indulging in "Hispanicizing nostalgia" by failing to disclose that the author of an early and influential book of recipes, first published in 1898, was a descendant of "one of Alta California's wealthiest and most tragic of the elite ranchero families," the Berryesa family. Reichl is praised for noting that "nouvelle" California cuisine can be traced to old Mexican culinary traditions, but, as far as I can make out, she is criticized for failing to point out that "Yankee miners, soldiers, and vigilantes lynched or shot a total of eight Berryesa men."