Sacramento — America’s Farm-To-Fork-Capital
Chef Ravin Patel holds cute little mason jars of baby root veggies in edible “soil.”
When one thinks of California’s top food cities, San Francisco and Los Angeles come to mind immediately.
As for Sacramento? Not nearly so readily.
In fact, a publicist for the Sacramento Convention & Visitors Bureau told me that when arranging a tour recently for an out-of-state food writer, the visiting scribe’s first question was, “Is there an airport there?”
Why, yes, there is. It is the Golden State’s capitol, after all.
Indeed, Sacramento is home to nearly half a million people, as well as 1.5 million acres of farmland. With a year-round growing season, it produces more than 120 different crops that are enjoyed not only locally but abroad.
It grows more sushi rice than any other place. In fact, chances are if you eat any sushi in California, the rice was grown in Sacramento. The city produces 80 percent of the nation’s caviar. The breadth of the bounty includes everything from almonds to Kobe beef to wine grapes.
The fork in Farm-To-Fork.
Even the table was decorated with freshly grown provisions from Sacramento.
I was reminded of just how crucial Sacramento is to our plates when I attended a special private dinner last week in San Francisco that spotlighted the city’s culinary treasures. It was a Sacramento roadshow, as Executive Chef Oliver Ridgeway of Grange Restaurant & Bar and Chef Ravin Patel, chief culinary officer of Selland Family Restaurants, trekked down from Sacramento to EatWith’s South of Market event space in San Francisco to prepare a multi-course feast for a dozen food journalists and bloggers. All of it featured fruits, vegetables, meats and seafood sourced from Sacramento.
Chef Olivier Ridgeway preparing the Passmore Ranch trout.
The dinner also was a preview of what’s to come at this year’s Farm-to-Fork celebration in Sacramento in September, which includes a street festival and “Legends of Wine” dinner. It culminates Sept. 27 with a spectacular family-style dinner for 760 people on the Tower Bridge, which stretches across the Sacramento River linking Yolo and Sacramento counties. If you’re itching to go to that one, you’re out of luck. The $150 tickets for the bridge dinner sold out in 15 seconds.
Cecilia Chiang and Darrell Corti.
I might not be able to eat al fresco on bridge, but at last week’s dinner, I did have the pleasure of dining with two special guests of honor. And when I say special, I mean special, as in Cecilia Chiang, the matriarch of Chinese cuisine, and Darrell Corti, owner of the legendary Corti Brothers market in Sacramento.
Corti, a bona fide expert on Italian foods and wines, and who has taught many a big-name chef a thing or two about cooking Italian food, chose all the wines for the evening. That included a rare Harbor Mission Del Sol 1986, the last vintage made with California Mission grapes in the syruped fermentation process to create a dessert wine. With a garnet-amber color, it is indeed rather syrupy in body with a taste reminiscent of butterscotch and balsamico.
Chiang and Corti downplayed their star wattage. Chiang couldn’t wait to take a group photo with the chefs. And Corti dismissed his status, telling guests, “People say I’m an icon. That’s nonsense. I’m a grocer. I sell groceries. That’s what I am.”
Kind of like Stephen Curry saying all he does is dribble a ball.
Michael Passmore serves his unique sturgeon nosh.
Sturgeon skin chicharrones with sturgeon caviar.
Also on hand was Michael Passmore of Passmore Ranch, the freshwater fish ranch just outside Sacramento that raises sturgeon, trout, bass, catfish and caviar for some of the most discriminating chefs in the country. The ranch reuses the water needed for raising fish, too, by using it to grow produce.
Radish and celery leaf salad.
Melon and tomato salad with walnuts, basil, mint and chili lime dressing.
Truffle Parker House rolls, warm right out of the oven.
At the dinner, one of my favorite bites had to have been the chicharrones made from sturgeon skin, fried until it was airy and crisp just like crackling, then topped with sturgeon caviar, creme fraiche, chive and buckwheat dust. The chicharrones and caviar came from a 10-year-old sturgeon raised on the ranch.
Chicken-fried lamb sweetbreads with gypsy pepper barbecue sauce, squash blossoms and pickled strawberries.
Coffee-braised Masami short ribs with corn, chili, radish and pickled onions.
Trout with heirloom bean succotash.
The entire meal saluted Sacramento’s finest with Karlonas Farms pheasant served with roasted oyster and beech mushrooms; Dixon lamb sweetbreads done chicken-fried-style; and so much more.
A unique dessert wine.
A refreshing dessert of cucumber namelaka (white chocolate ganache) with pickled cucumber, rye crumble, dill and cucumber ice cream.
It just reinforced the point that when it comes to fine eats in California, we should all do well to remember Sacramento’s big role in it all.
More: Exploring California Gold Country, Part I
Oh, I wished I’d heard about that dinner on the bridge, sounds so cool. All the dishes looks so bright and fresh, but I’m really salivating over that platter of sweetbreads!
Oh man, swooning over the sturgeon skin and caviar! 🙂