The non-profit Tucson City of Gastronomy organization, which manages the UNESCO City of Gastronomy designation for metro Tucson and Southern Arizona, announced its list of certified 2020 Tucson City of Gastronomy Restaurants.
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If you have ever been on a hike and wondered which plants are edible, this is the culinary tour for you. Dr. Suzanne Fish or Allen Denoyer guide you through Marana’s 4,000 years of agricultural history.
The two tours are the first to be approved by the Tucson City of Gastronomy, which was the first UNESCO City of Gastronomy in the U.S.
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“There are a lot of people who think food doesn’t grow here,” said Erik Stanford, owner of Pivot Produce.
Along with well-known edibles from greens and herbs to citrus, legumes, and roots, the Sonoran Desert provides a plethora of edible plants as well as some endemic plants that add a unique Sonoran take to local cuisine. Think bright prickly pear and barrel cactus fruit, the potent heat of chiltepin, plump delicate squash blossoms, and honey-sweet figs. Why isn’t there a larger farm-to-table movement in Tucson, then? This is where Pivot Produce comes in.
Stanford had been working as a chef for years in Tucson, within which he started programs to locally source produce, creating contacts, and cultivating relationships with local farmers. It began to shift his ethos from working under the status quo of industrialized food sourcing programs to supporting local farms and farmers. With that shift however, he began to see the issues chefs run into when trying to source locally.
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With The Parish executive chef Travis Peters defending the Iron Chef Tucson title, Maynards Market & Kitchen executive chef Brian Smith had a culinary mountain to overcome.
Chef Peters has been on a roll the past couple of years. Just recently, he appeared in an episode of Food Network’s Guy’s Grocery Games. He also traveled to fellow UNESCO City of Gastronomy, Dénia, Spain to represent Tucson.
However, Smith also served as a culinary ambassador for Tucson at another UNESCO City of Gastronomy: Parma, Italy.
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DOWNTOWN Kitchen + Cocktails is starting its Around the Globe Summer Culinary Tour with a Macau menu from Wednesday, May 23 – Wednesday, July 11.
Representing Tucson as the first city in the US to be named a City of Gastronomy, chef Janos Wilder and others have been invited to other “sister” cities around the world to share the region’s culinary history and unique foods.
The DOWNTOWN Kitchen Around the Globe summer series features menus from all over, focusing on ingredients, technique, and the culinary appreciation of each destination.
This year begins with Macau. A region of the People’s Republic of China, Macau has 400 years of culinary experience. The cuisine highlights a blend of Southern Chinese and Portuguese cuisines, with a hint of Southeast Asia.
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If you appreciate local food beyond flavor, don’t miss on Marana’s newly-created food tour.
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“To an outsider, Tucson’s star turn may be a bit of a head scratcher,” states yesterday’s New York Times feature “Tucson Becomes an Unlikely Food Star.”
It’s a conversation I’ve had countless times regarding the UNESCO designation, which many mistakenly believe is primarily tied to Tucson’s restaurant scene. That’s not to say we don’t have amazing chefs and restaurants doing great things. It’s just a lot more comprehensive than that.
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