12,000 Sample Salsa Servings at Annual Festival

Socorra Berberian ladled the chunky red sauce from a bowl and slathered it over the roasted sweet, white corn on the cob she held in her fist.

She peered up with a small, guilty-looking smile before crunching into the salsa-covered corn.

“Very good,” she said in between bites. “Not too hot, not too sweet. Just the way I like it.”

Berberian was one of an estimated 12,000 people who attended the 5th Annual Salsa Festival at Plaza Park in Oxnard on Sunday. Like many people at the event, the 40-year-old Ventura resident was enjoying her meal with a healthy serving of salsa.

Dozens of local restaurant owners and nonprofit groups set up food booths serving fresh salsa with their dishes. People ate green and red salsa with everything from tamales to Chinese food to hot dogs.

“Everything is salsa,” said Gary Blum, president of the Downtown Oxnard Merchants Assn., the nonprofit organization that sponsored the event. “Salsa tasting, salsa competition, salsa dance and salsa music.”

Festival-goers also enjoyed a beer garden, carnival rides and shopping and browsing at the many stands offering such things as jewelry, handmade air-brushed T-shirts, scented candles and clothes.

At one booth, a psychic named Senora Rebecca read the intricate lines in people’s palms and predicted their pasts, present and futures.

“Now, I can finally find out if my wife’s been cheating on me,” joked George Garcia, 40, of Oxnard, who stood with his longtime spouse, Gloria.

More than 20 professional and amateur salsa-makers participated in the best salsa recipe contest, said Peter Spink, one of the 80 members of the merchants association, which aims to revitalize downtown Oxnard.

Categories included best red, green, hot, mild, best appearance, best texture and most unusual salsa. There’s a definite art to salsa-making, said Spink, who owns Cabo Seafood Grill & Cantina in Oxnard.

Cooks can choose to use tomatillos, red tomatoes, chili arbol, onion, garlic, jalapenos, peppers or--as in the case of most unusual category entry--even carrots. They can chop the vegetables or blend them.

“The variations are limitless,” Spink said. “But freshness is always the key.”

Oxnard City Manager Ed Sotelo, Councilman Tom Holden and city planner Alex Herra were among the salsa judges.

Although organizers said people came from as far as Bakersfield and even Colorado and Virginia to attend the event, many revelers were Oxnard natives.

“I’ve run into my niece and a lot of my friends here today,” said Vince Ochoa.

“It reminds me that we live in a very close-knit community,” said Ochoa’s niece, Claudia Dollar, who brought her 3-year-old son, Sean, to the festival.