Moscow Food Co-op Food ReviewSalsa
by Vicki Reich, from the May 2001 Newsletter
I think my most favorite food is chips-and-salsa. I eat them almost every day after work as a snack before dinner and sometimes they are dinner, if I'm rushed for time. Several months ago we taste tested chips for this column, and as I was stocking a new brand of salsa recently, I thought it time to see which salsa was the best.
The one thing I learned even before we started the taste test was that the Co-op carries a heck of a lot of salsa. We tested 8 different brands and each of those brands has a whole bunch of flavors and temperatures to choose from. For consistency, I picked the most traditional flavor of each brand and either a mild or medium heat (there are a few hot wimps among the Hog Heaven Handspinners, but I won't name names).
We started the night with Enrico's Mild Organic Salsa ($3.29). This is a very mild salsa with a slightly sweet taste and good size chunks.
Seeds of Change Organic Traditional Picante Medium($3.49) is a zesty salsa with not a lot of chunks but thick tomato texture and taste. What I like best about this brand is that the hot varieties are truly hot.
Salpica Rustic Tomato Salsa Mild ($3.39) was the most different tasting salsa of the evening. It is very garlic-y with a strong roasted flavor. It is slightly creamy in consistency and doesn't "sit up and say howdy on the chip" as Sarah so eloquently put it. It was, however, one of the favorites of the night.
Muir Glen Organic Fire Roasted Tomato Medium Salsa ($2.95) has a nice smoky flavor with green chilies and a pretty good amount of heat for a medium salsa. It has a good chunky consistency as well.
Green Mountain Gringo Mild Salsa is the freshest tasting of the jarred salsas we tasted. It has that ripe tomato sweetness of summer and good chunks.
Que Pasa Medium Salsa Mexicana ($3.19) has lots of onions and vinegar with a good spice level and "afterburn."
Virginia's salsa ($5.50) is our only locally-made salsa and one of two fresh salsas we tasted. It has a great fresh look to it and has lots of cilantro and onions. It tastes really fresh and has a little kick to it. This was one of the top two salsas.
The last salsa we tasted was Emerald Valley Medium Salsa ($2.75). It is fresh tasting with a complex and interesting blend of spices and lots of vinegar and garlic. This was also one of the top two salsas and definitely my personal favorite.
There was definitely a wide range of opinions as to which was the best salsa since everyone had a very different idea of what makes good salsa. Some like a lot of spice, some like chunks, some like an intense tomato taste like a paste, and some want just the opposite. Needless to say, we did not reach consensus. The fresh salsas were definitely the most liked, but I like to keep a jar of salsa in the pantry for those occasions when I run out of fresh. I would have a hard time deciding which one to choose. I guess I'll keep trying them all one by one.
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