"Really, it's just a grocery" says Darrel Corti. So says the man who was knighted by Italy for helping to promote Italian food products and who inducted into the Culinary Institutes vinter's Hall of Fame. It's great and pretty rare to see humbleness at work in the world of food these days, let alone shop in an unassuming grocery store packed to the brim with treasures.
Up until this morning I had never heard of the Corti Brothers in Sacramento. But from what I've read they were the leading advocates of the gourmet grocery shopping back in the seventies and eighties when such a thing was a rarity. And according to the alarm that went up in the community when it became known that another gourment chain was going to taking over the site, apparently they still are.
There are many high end natural food chains available these days where you can drop in to pick up fresh, wholesome ingredients, but that can also be said for a wide variety of regular grocery stores as well. Safeway, Albertsons and Fred Meyers all have a plentiful variety of natural and gourmet foods available that would have been unthinkable ten to fifteen years ago. I think we take for granted such food stuffs as high quality olive oil, basalmic vinegar and exotic cheeses, but someone had to start the trend on the West coast and it was great to finally read about the orginal pioneers.
I know that there will always be Trader Joes for those of us with a passion for interesting foodstuffs at a low price. But for those rare imported goods and high quality items that helped to spark a food revolution, Corti Brothers on Folsome sounds like a mecca to me. I figure between a platter of The Sister's enchildas in Sacramento, a good In-N-Out cheeseburgerburger in Redding, a decent bowl of fish chowder in San Francisco and a loaf or two of Boudin's sourdough straight from the bakery at Fisherman's Wharf that a three to four day weekend gustatory tour to Northern California might be in order!
Cooks Talk!
http://www.latimes.com/features/food/la-fo-corti10-2008sep10,0,968086.story
Corti Brother's web site:
http://www.cortibros.biz/
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