Farm-to-Fork...Meet Fork-to-Farm! What Happens When Chefs Leave the Kitchen and Come Out to the Ranch?
On a beautiful spring day in Sacramento, California nearly 40 chefs from premier restaurants, meat managers from some of Sacramento's most well-known and established specialty grocers, and food industry leaders boarded a bus outside downtown's Grange Restaurant & Bar for a 45-minute drive to a sprawling ranch in southeast Sacramento County. They had signed on to spend the day seeing a local beef cattle ranch and get a personal look at Sacramento's Farm-to-Fork movement at its most basic level.
They came armed with questions. Fifth-generation California cattle rancher Stan Van Vleck just hoped he had the answers.
Sacramento has declared itself the "Farm-to-Fork Capital of America," and for good reason. Residents of California's capital enjoy ample farmer's markets and a large number of restaurants that source directly from area farms and ranches. According to the California Department of Food and Agriculture, California is the leading agricultural state in the nation, producing more than 400 commodities. The six-county Sacramento region produces a variety of agricultural commodities including rice, tomatoes, walnuts, dried plums, wine grapes, pears and of course, cattle.
"My ancestors came west from Wisconsin in 1856," Van Vleck said. "We still hold the original homestead property, and we have one of the wagons that were part of that 1856 wagon train." Today the ranch is more than just cattle. About 50,000 people a year use the ranch for activities as varied as Boy Scout and Girl Scout outings, local school tours to learn about agriculture and the environment, paintball, and emergency and disaster drill training for the National Guard, Sacramento County Sheriff's Department, Sacramento Metro Fire, and Cal Fire. The ranch is even home to almost 800 acres of protected agricultural land and provides critical habitat to a variety of native species and grasses.
But today was decidedly all about beef--both on the hoof and in the kitchen.
As the chefs walked the range with Van Vleck the quetions ran the gamut from, "how is the drought impacting your cattle" to "where can I buy your beef." Probably the most unexpected treat for the chefs was to watch ranch manager Jerry Spencer and his dog bring a small herd of cattle into a pen and demonstrate some techniques of low-stress cattle handling. Ranchers understand that less stress on the animal actually has a positive impact on the meat, Van Vleck noted.
As the "Fork" end of "Farm-to-Fork," however, the chefs' primary interest was the product on the plate. Meat cutting specialist Bridget Wasser of the National Cattlemen's Beef Association took center stage, demonstrating techniques for carving a chuck roll and sharing some innovative options chefs and meat cutters have in working with different cuts of beef. Perhaps a few new menu item concepts even took shape.
The idea of mere cooks feeding known area chefs is a daunting one, so Chef Mark Berkner, proprietor of Taste Restaurant and recognized for outstanding regional cuisine by the James Beard Foundation, provided a lunch of innovative beef appetizers and entrees including Beef Nigiri Sushi, Mediterranean Steak Salad, and a delicious grilled Wagyu Denver Steak.
"These kinds of meeting opportunities are very important," said the California Beef Council's Jill Scofield. "We've found that when professionals like these chefs have a chance to see a cattle operation first-hand and ask questions directly to the ranchers producing beef, everyone, especially the consumer, benefits from a deeper understanding of how beef gets from the pasture to the plate."
