Parents need not
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hang out at this
night club.
See Page 3B
Oregon daily emerald
arts & entertainment
may 3, 1985
Eugene, a city located about 1,000 miles
north of the Mexican / American border,
sports not one, but three local fresh salsa
producers. , ...
This isn’t the watery, sometimes
bitter-tasting sauce that sits indefinitely in jars bn the
store shelf.
Nor is it the spicy complimentary sauce served
with tortilla chips at local bars and Mexican food
restaurants.
This is fresh, thick, chunky salsa — with real
tomatoes, onions, spices and no preservatives — sold '
in the refrigerated deli-section of health food stores
and independent grocery stores.
Ask any of the three local salsa manufacturers
and they’ll tell you that there is no comparison bet
ween commercially made salsa and the hot stuff they
whip up, package and deliver themselves.
"It’s jus* as good as right out of the garden,”
says Becky Paxton, owner and operator of Salsa De
• Casa, the first fresh salsa in the area.
Paxton, who has made and marketed the salsa for
the last two years, bought the business from a friend
who got the recipe from a ‘‘Mexican grandmother."
Up until just a few weeks ago, Paxton made the
salsa at home in'her kitchen. She used to hand-chop
the vegetables, mix the sauce up (the fresh stuff is not
cooked) and deliver the sauce to stores the same day
since she had no refrigeration facilities. Now she
makes the sauce two days a week at the Emerald
Valley Kitchen in Springfield, uses a food processor
to dice the vegetables to the right chunkiness and
stores the product in the walk-in refrigerators there
for distributors to pick up and deliver all over the
state.
Dean Miller, owner of Dean's Famous Salsa,
started mixing up his salsa at home for himself, ex
perimenting with different ingredients and combina
tions he picked up through people he met in his ex
tensive travels through Mexico.
“In Mexico, each family has and makes their
own salsa," Miller says. "I had literally hundreds of
types of salsa.”
When friends started asking for containers of his
special recipe. Miller decided to market the salsa,
first from his home, then, since about a year ago,
from a small kitchen and office near East 17th
Avenue and Pearl Street.
An important ingredient in Dean’s Salsa is the
pickled jalapeno peppers, which Miller says is more
authentically Mexican than using fresh peppers.
“In Mexico, every store has a jar of pickled
jalaperios. Most people (in Mexico) use the pickled
ones," he says.
But Jan Zimmermann, manufacturer of Jan’s
Original Hot Sauce, insists on putting fresh jalapenos
in his sauce, calling them the “nucleus” of his salsa.
Zimmermann says his salsa has "evolved" over
the 1 '/j years since he first started marketing it from
his home. “I made it just for the table," he says, ad
ding that the recipe is a little different each time he
makes the salsa, which gives “character” to the
product.
“I don't like to taste the same thing every time,”
he says.
Like the other salsa makers, Zimmermann started
selling his hot sauce in local health food stores,
which he says were very receptive to his product.
“Every store 1 went into I was picked up,” he
says.
Now the three fresh salsas from Eugene are ship
ped around the state and, in the case of Jan’s Salsa, to
Washington, Idaho and Alaska.
Fresh cilantro, a flavorful parsley-like vegetable,
tomato paste or puree, and fresh tomatoes and onions
are some other key ingredients in fresh salsas.
Though their recipes may differ, all three salsa
makers agree they are hooked on the hot stuff.
“Once you’re addicted to salsa, nothing is good
without it,” says Miller, who puts it on eggs, in cot
tage cheese and with fish.
A natural-foods enthusiast, Zimmermann enjoys
his hot sauce poured over tofu and rice cake.
One customer said Salsa De Casa tasted great
with ice cream, Paxton relates with a grimace.
With the absence of preservatives, the refrigerator
shelf life for fresh salsa ranges from two weeks for
Salsa De Casa to five weeks for Jan's Salsa. Zimmer
mann says the vinegar he puts in his sauce acts as a
natural preservative.
Plr ■