New Orleans
in Euene
Longtime Eugene chef
Jorge Navarro starts
anew with food truck
By Daemion Lee
A
ccording to Jorge Navarro, everyone
should go to New Orleans at least once. He
traveled to the Louisiana hot spot when he
turned 40, and soon after, started Café
Navarro, which served New Orleans-
inspired dishes in Eugene until 2001.
“I consider New Orleans-style food to
be the real American culinary tradition,”
Navarro says, explaining how the city’s
famed Creole cuisine incorporates
European, African, Native American and other influences,
turning them into something new.
His new food truck, Navarro’s Latin Creole Kitchen,
pulls its origins from a different American city — it’s
influenced by the family meals Navarro ate as a kid in the
Latino communities of East Los Angeles. But, he says, he
still aspires to that same mentality, a New Orleans-style
sense for the mixing of diverse traditions — hence “Creole.”
Or, as Navarro puts it, “The reason I went with ‘Creole’
is it allows me to cook anything I damn well want.”
That means this food truck has untraditional choices.
Like torta de jefe — the boss’ sandwich — a combination of
Cuban sandwich and torta, the Mexican sandwich. Or mole-
que sauce, a mixture of mole sauce and barbeque sauce made
with cashews, pumpkin seeds, garlic, molasses and four
kinds of chilies. And then there are the Cuban pork sweet
potato fries, with complex and surprisingly light flavors.
Navarro says he found inspiration for this latest culinary
adventure while working with Latino immigrants. He served
as executive director of Centro Latin Americano and later
worked with Huerto de la Familia, a nonprofit that helps
Latino families start gardens and launch small businesses.
He recalls how a Latina woman in one of his programs
cultivated a Mexican squash plant in an alley where
formerly there was trash. She made tortillas and black
bean paste dribbled with asiento, which reminded Navarro
of the food he grew up with.
It was a rediscovery of what he calls his “culinary
cultural food identity,” the connection between food, family
CHEF JORGE NAVARRO AND LINE COOK JOSE PEREZ
and self-identity. It’s what keeps immigrants healthy, he
says, at least as long as they keep cooking at home.
“I think food’s the center of the universe, culturally,
politically, economically,” Navarro says.
And that’s what he is trying to capture with his Latin
Creole Kitchen — traditional Latin American food,
adapted to the unique mix of traditions in the U.S. It’s an
alternative to corporate food and an attempt to create a
truly American cuisine.
Navarro himself brings together many elements of the
Eugene universe, if not the cosmic one. He made the trek
north from East L.A. in 1973 as a musician with the band
Mithrandir and that same year opened the first burrito
stand at the Saturday Market. Later he gathered culinary
expertise from Hilda Ward of Hilda’s Latin American
Restaurant, a Whiteaker staple that closed in 2001.
These influences and more are part of the Latin Creole
Kitchen, and Navarro brims with new ideas. The menu will
grow in the future, he says — Middle Eastern influences might
show up. He talks about finding the perfect corn variety for the
Willamette Valley in order to produce all-local tortillas.
And plans are in the works to partner with ColdFire
Brewing. “They’re invested in food,” Navarro says about
the new brewery’s owners and adds that his food should
go well with their European-style beers.
Navarro's truck is hard to miss. He explains that his
partner went to a workshop involving South American devil
masks and made a watercolor of one of them. He decided to
use it as the logo for his food truck. “Anyone who is offended
by it probably won’t like our food anyway,” Navarro says.
Navarro’s Latin Creole Kitchen is open 5-9 pm Mondays at Oakshire
Public House, 207 Madison Street. Check out its Facebook page for
updates.
‘I think food’s the center of the universe, culturally, politically, economically.’ —Chef JOrge Navarro
SAVORY SEASONAL
SWEET POTATO SOUP
PHOTOS BY TODD COOPER
DOLBADITAS WITH PICO DE GALLO
AND CHIPOTLE CREAM
EUGENEWEEKLY.COM/CHOW
CHOW WINTER 2016
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