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Menudo cook-off: Full-flavored fun
Menudo lovers, adventurous newbies get chance to stomach popular Hispanic stew at ninth annual cook-off
| Wednesday, May 30 2007 8:05 PM
Last Updated: Wednesday, May 30 2007 8:24 PM
How many jalapeno peppers can you eat in one sitting? If you are macho enough to handle more than 22, you might be able to beat the three-time winner of last year's jalapeno-eating contest at the Kern County Hispanic Chamber of Commerce's biggest outdoor fundraiser and Hispanic community awareness event.
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Lorraine Garcia feeds her 6-year-old granddaughter, Nena Franco, menudo during a past cook-off.
Pig’s feet are added to the menudo
After garlic and onions, Annaluisia Muro adds oregano, then it’s off to the stove to simmer.
After getting all the menudo ingredients together in a pot and on the stove, Annaluisia Muro takes a minute to pose for a portrait. She is a cook at El Chile Verde Grill Mexican restaurant.
The Latino Food Festival and ninth annual Menudo Cook-Off is happening Sunday at Stramler Park, and if you go, you will be able to enjoy menudo and other traditional foods and refreshments, test your jalapeno-eating prowess and then enter the ice cream-eating competition.
"There are people that enter both," said Lou Gomez, chamber president and CEO. "They enter the ice cream-eating contest after they enter the jalapeño one because their stomach is burning so they want to cool it down."
How could anyone resist?
About 4,500 people attended the all-afternoon event last year, Gomez said, and as many are expected this year.
There's spicy fun for everyone -- including the menudo cook-off contestants.
"We have a lot of contestants that are not Hispanic," Gomez said. "They get into it because they love menudo, too, and they think they can cook the best in Kern County.
"A lot of the non-Hispanics like to add their own variety," he said. "One contestant in a past year told me he was going to make it with hamburger meat instead of tripe."
Tripe?!!!!
Tripe: a meat marshmallow
Menudo with a capital "M" is a popular Puerto Rican boy band that existed with different members between the late-1970s and mid-1990s and launched Ricky Martin into international stardom.
But menudo with a lowercase "m" is a spicy, tripe and hominy soup or stew that originated in Mexico but is eaten anywhere in the world where there are large Mexican communities -- including Kern County.
Annaluisia Muro, 36, a cook at El Chile Verde Grill Mexican restaurant, on Rosedale Highway and Calloway Drive, cooks big batches of menudo daily and is proud to introduce it to the not-so-macho at heart.
"A lot of people," she said, "they think about it and say, 'That's cow stomach?!' But once they try it, they enjoy it."
El Chile Verde's menudo recipe includes pig's feet as well as tripe.
Some customers order extra tripe, extra feet, only tripe and no feet, only feet and no tripe, only hominy or hold the hominy, Muro said.
Tripe is chewy -- like a meat marshmallow.
Pig's feet have a lot of bones in them. It is best to have an empty plate or bowl into which bone fragments can be spat.
But the chili powder-flavored broth and the hominy -- especially with a twist of lemon for tanginess -- are a festive delight for the taste buds and a hearty fill for the stomach.
Medicinal, sobering menudo
Gomez says people love menudo or they hate it, but if you're looking for a universal selling point before you try it, it's this:
"It's rumored to have medicinal purposes and to cure hangover," he said.
Samantha Davis, 41, a waitress at El Chile Verde, says it took her boss a whole year to talk her into trying menudo, but she finally did on a hungover morning about five years ago.
"It made me feel better. It actually helped and I've been eating it ever since," she said.
"I guess it's the chili," Muro said. "You sweat it out."
Menudo for Sunday brunch
"On Sunday mornings, restaurants serve menudo," Gomez said. "People like it with onions, dried red chiles, lemon wedges and cilantro," which are served on the side and added to the soup.
El Chile Verde's menudo recipe, which calls for red chili sauce, was actually inherited by Jobie McCay who co-owns the restaurant with sons Robert, a Hispanic Chamber member, and Marty.
"This is her mother's recipe," Muro said.
But different families have different recipes, and there is also white menudo and green chili menudo, she said.
El Chile Verde's menudo is so popular, Davis said, that "Sunday I have to restock it three or four times on the (brunch) buffet."
Some families even come with a pot so they can buy some to take home, Muro said.
The rest of the week it is offered daily as a lunch buffet item and all day as a menu item.
So are you convinced? If you aren't, are you at least adventurous enough to try menudo?
On Sunday, the Hispanic chamber will have a booth at Stramler Park where they will be selling it all afternoon.
But if you want to taste some for free, Gomez said, after the judges get samples for the menudo cook-off, what's left in the pots becomes a sort of menudo free-for-all, as contestants give it away to anyone who comes around.
What: Kern County Hispanic Chamber of Commerce Latino Food Festival and Ninth Annual Menudo Cook-Off
When: 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Sunday
Where: Stramler Park, 3805 Chester Ave. in Bakersfield
Admission: $5 advance tickets; $6 at the door; free for children 12 and under.
Menudo Cook-Off entry fee: $45 (Cash prizes of $500, $300 and $200 for top three menudo entries. Also trophies for the three best-decorated booths.)
Special attractions: Music by salsa group Malo, vendor booths, entertainment for kids, jalapeno- and ice cream-eating contests.
For advance tickets, sponsorship and information: Call the chamber at 633-5495.