Salsa Festival Peppered With Spicy Concoctions

As festivals go, this one cooked.

Oxnard’s third annual Salsa Festival, which continues today at Plaza Park, is a way to test one’s tolerance to pain--the fiery kind. The main attraction here is not the carnival rides or the live entertainment, although both were offered throughout the day. Nor is it the arts and crafts, games, beer garden or ice carving demonstrations.

It is the many tomatoey, heat-inducing concoctions--some homemade, several others the commercial variety--that attract the crowds.

Saturday’s opening day found many festival-goers holding their mouths and making guttural utterances that could have been translated into requests for something wet and cool to quaff.

One of those responsible was Walt Deleus of Ventura. Deleus and about 15 other amateur salsa chefs vied for the People’s Choice Award, which was given to the top homemade recipe Saturday.

Deleus baited all of those that came near his bright orange-hued habanero salsa. “This is my thermonuclear meltdown experience,” Deleus repeated. One after another, Deleus handed out chips dipped in his lethal recipe and awarded his guinea pigs a certificate that read: “I survived the Walt Deleus Hellbanero Salsa Challenge.”

“I’m going to need a new tongue,” said Jaime McCracken, 17, of Ventura after taking the challenge.

Ventura resident James Teschner, 34, an electrical engineer, started making salsa while he was attending the University of Arizona in the 1980s. “I started doing it for fun and kept modifying my recipe,” he said, manning a vendor booth filled with his bottled JC’s Midnite Salsa varieties. “Pretty soon all of my friends requested it to give for birthday gifts. It got real crazy.”

One thing led to another and Teschner had a sideline in the salsa business, bottling his own recipes. He won the “Best Hot” award at this year’s Fiery Foods Challenge, a large festival held annually in Albuquerque, N.M.

Salsa connoisseur Ed Grissom and his wife, Kelli, drove up from Escondido to visit the festival. “I’ve had hotter,” he said after plunging a chip into Teschner’s “Hotter ‘n Hell” recipe. Teschner bent over and reached into a case for a bottle labeled “Blackout.” “Try this,” he said.

Grissom, 39, dipped his chip into the rich salsa and tasted it. “That’s just about right,” he mumbled, red-faced. “Now it’s time to fetch a beer.”

The salsa festival will continue today from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.; the carnival rides will run from 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. Salsa tastings are free. For more information, call 483-4542.