All Salsa, All the Time

Is Oxnard burning? Yes, but it’ll be a controlled burn confined to adventurers who sample the wrong stuff at this weekend’s seventh annual Oxnard Salsa Festival. Billed as “The Hottest Event in Southern California,” last year’s edition drew more than 20,000 people to Plaza Park downtown.

“It’s everything salsa,” said festival manager Ruth Bernstein. “It’s been getting bigger every year. We’ve increased publicity and increased the corporate sponsorship, but the main reason was the desire by the Downtown Oxnard Merchants Assn. to make this more of a regional event than just a local event.”

Salsa has a variety of incarnations, including that spicy mix of tomatoes, onions and hot peppers, as well as music and dance, and all will be well represented at this event. In the edible portion of the program, salsa fans can sample dozens of salsas made by amateurs and pros. Judges will select winners in categories that include best red, best green, best hot, best mild, best fruit and most unusual. The top winner, the Judge’s Choice, will earn $100.

In a taste-off held in June, a panel of judges sampled a dozen bottled salsas in order to select the “official salsa” of this event. The winner was a garlic-based salsa concocted by Ventura County-based Red Hot Foods. It will be sold with a special label for $5 a jar over the weekend.

“This year, we wised up and split the judges beforehand into groups that like hot salsa and those who didn’t,” Bernstein said. “After you taste hot salsa, you’re pretty much useless as a judge.”

Butch Baselice, owner of Red Hot Foods, has more than 25 years in the restaurant business and his company produces more than 40 different sauces and seasonings. Describing his winning entry, Baselice said, “Everyone seems to like garlic. It’s not too spicy, sort of middle of the road and not too hot, and it should appeal to the average person.”

In addition to the winning recipe, Baselice will have nearly 20 other types of salsa on sale this weekend. His top seller is El Scorcho, which is a 10 on the Set Your Lips Ablaze scale of 1 to 10. This fire-in-a-jar concoction contains the red savina pepper, which, according to the Guinness Book of Records, is the hottest pepper in the world. It’s grown in Oxnard.

Concocting a great salsa is not just for the established restaurants and pros like Baselice. Amateurs will get their chance to enflame or enamor the judges with the Great Salsa Challenge slated for Sunday at 10 a.m. All entrants will receive a souvenir apron.

Alongside all that salsa, food court vendors will offer Mexican, Puerto Rican, Cajun, Asian and American dishes. In the nearby festival marketplace, vendors will sell the usual collection of arts and crafts, jewelry, kitchenware, pottery and other fun stuff. Youngsters can drag their parents to the Kids’ Korner for games, face-painting, a giant slide, an obstacle course and a hands-on exhibit from the Gull Wings Children’s Museum.

The live entertainment is continuous. Here’s the Saturday lineup: Hot Sauce (11 a.m.), Inlakech Ballet Folklorico (1 p.m.), Candi Sosa (2 p.m.), salsa dance contest--amateur division (4 p.m.) and Bobby Matos & His Latin Jazz Ensemble (5 p.m.). On Sunday: Tizok (11 a.m.), Hot Peppers Production (1 p.m.), Susie Hansen Latin Band (2 p.m.), salsa dance contest--professional division (4 p.m.) and Latin Fusion (5 p.m.).

“We only have one stage and we have a great sound system, so the music permeates the park and sets the tone for the entire event,” Bernstein said. “This year, we have Candi Sosa, ‘the first lady of salsa.’ She’s been all over the world. This year the challenge was to get all salsa bands, because in past years, we’ve had bands that were not salsa bands, and I think we’ve succeeded. We even have a couple of local bands, Hot Sauce--great name--and a new band called Tizok, which will be playing salsa and cumbias.”

According to Bernstein, there are thousands of parking places within a few blocks of the event, both on the street or in city lots. Some of the proceeds will go toward repairing the Plaza Park pagoda, which reportedly needs more than $100,000 worth of work.

Oh, and the cure for flaming mouth? Not water. Not beer or margaritas.

“The hot part of the pepper comes from the oil, so you have to drink or eat something that absorbs the oil,” Baselice said. “Water and oil don’t mix, and water will only cool you off for a second. You need to drink milk or eat a cracker or a piece of bread, something that absorbs the oil.”

DETAILS

Seventh annual Oxnard Salsa Festival at Plaza Park, 5th and B Streets, Saturday and Sunday, 11 a.m. to 7 p.m.; free; 247-0197.

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Bill Locey can be reached by e-mail at blocey@pacbell.net.