10 foods that make America great

9) San Francisco sourdough (California)
The use of a sour starter for bread predates not only San Francisco but most of European history. Yet its American genesis came during the 1849 California gold rush, when baker Isidore Boudin baked French bread in San Francisco and sold it to miners headed for the hills of what had not quite yet come to be known as the Golden State.

Justin Sullivan / Getty Images Sourdough baguettes on the shelf at San Francisco's Noe Valley Bakery and Bread Co. In a fresh-and-local town, nothing beats a fresh, locally baked loaf.

Rather than pack yeast into the wilderness, prospectors could take a bit of starter along with them and keep reusing it to bake their own bread. John Mariani writes that “it was because of the bread’s popularity among miners that ‘sourdough’ became a slang term for the prospectors themselves and, later, by extension, all Alaskans,” since the city by the bay was also a jump-off for the later Yukon gold rush.

The tang of a proper San Francisco sourdough is unmistakable, as is the thick crust and irregularly holed interior. Similar breads can be replicated anywhere, of course, but residents often claim the Bay Area possesses a climate unique to help the necessary starter bacteria flourish. (Indeed, some microbiologists finger a helpful culprit called Lactobacillus sanfrancisco.)

Astoundingly, the Boudin bakery still survives to this day — claiming to use a portion of the original “mother” starter that began it all.  But other contenders abound, like Berkeley-based Acme Bread. L.A.'s La Brea Bakery even caused a stir when, in 1997, the editors of the San Francisco Chronicle picked its parbaked sourdough baguette over local offerings.

No matter. San Francisco has indelibly set the sourdough bar. Sit at the waterside Ferry Plaza, take an unadorned bite of the city’s original culinary trademark, and wonder why Americans ever settle for plain old white bread.