The Hessian Chef

Even in November, just a week before Thanksgiving, bountiful sun and tepid weather can be found in Orange County. Maybe that’s why our outdoor dining scene and our food truck culture are both so wildly popular. Where else can you get a seriously delicious lunch … from a truck … just off the Coastline on a crisp Fall day? A lunch replete with seasonal ingredients, attention to detail, and outright tastiness? 

Such was the scene today, Wednesday, in Newport Beach. New and local favorites Taco Maria were on hand with a few others just near Fashion Island at the San Joaquin Hills business plaza. My taco lunch featured beef hanger and roasted shisito pepper flecked with smoky bacon, pumpkin and black beans with chile spice and salsa de semillas, pork shoulder carnitas redolent of winter citrus with avocado and hibiscus radishes (California wrapped up in a corn tortilla), and a deep mole chicken with layers upon layers of sweet and savory flavors garnished with toasted sliced almonds that provided perfect crunch and nuttiness. But I’ve written their praises before. 

Today was about my conversation with Carlos Salgado. It was my pleasure to have the opportunity to sit down with a “Chef’s Chef”. To rap about the upcoming Farm to Food Truck Challenge coming up this weekend at SoCo in Costa Mesa.

(Note: All photography by Anne Watson of Anne Watson Photography)

Hessian Chef: How did Taco Maria come together? 

Carlos: My parents have owned their restaurant La Siesta in Orange for 25 years and I grew up there. I would spend my Summers working there but mostly I was a computer nerd back then. I moved up to San Francisco, ostensibly, to go to work for a technology company. After a few months of being addicted to the Farmer’s Markets there, I spent all my time cooking and decided to go to Culinary School again. Once I decided to start cooking professionally, I knew it would mean I’d be coming back to work with my parents.

We always wanted to build up to doing traditional and refined Mexican cooking, but La Siesta sort of settled into more of a standard, somewhat Americanized style of cooking. My sister and I knew we wanted to retire our parents sooner rather than later and after getting some experience opening a few restaurants with talented and inspirational Chefs, I gained the confidence to come back here and give them some guidance.

I know Roy Choi (of Kogi BBQ fame) and I spent a good amount of time talking with him about his model. At the same time, my parents were already speaking with somebody that wanted to lease them a traditional white lonchera. As they started to take the idea more seriously, I sort of intercepted it and we had a chance to more carefully decide what we were going to do. We came up with a Chef-driven concept that changed with the seasons and featured local produce. All the things that mean a lot to me personally. We realized we could do it with a truck.

Hessian Chef: How does seasonality and availability play into Taco Maria’s cuisine?

The ideals of cooking economically. Cooking what’s available. Trying to draw as much flavor as possible out of a minimum set of ingredients. Those are all ideas that are in line with modern cuisine. Even though modern cuisine is a little late to the game, because that’s the way most of our ancestors were cooking. 

There’s a lot of pressure on us to provide free salsas and condiments, but in April, there isn’t a good case of quality California tomatoes anywhere to be found. So I don’t think it’s a sustainable way to cook. To me, for example, the Jardinero taco is an opportunity to showcase what’s best. 

Hessian Chef: Right. It seems to me like the Taco Maria Jardinero Taco in April would look a lot different than the Jardinero Taco in August.

Carlos: Yes. Totally. I’m hoping to change the menu a lot more frequently now that we’ve begun to staff up. And cooking sustainably isn’t a buzzword for us. So what’s the place of the traditional Taqueria in all of that? Is a taco truck the right place to politicize food? No, and that’s not what we’re trying to do at all, but I don’t know how to cook any other way. 

Our food is reactive to what’s available in Orange County. What are the farmers at the Farmers’ Markets growing? What kind of relationships can we build with them where we’re getting different ingredients? Or maybe even down the line getting ingredients that they aren’t even bringing to market? That’s more the kind of community and style of cooking we’re trying to build down the line. 

I’m really happy to find a lot of like-minded people in Orange County, with very few detractors or skeptics. I’m very pleased with the level of success that we’ve been lucky enough to have, and just the character of the people that come out to eat at our truck. 

Hessian Chef: From my perspective, it seems like you guys have a distinct viewpoint on Mexico and that style of food comes crashing into California in a really great way.

Carlos: That’s great if that comes across in the food. That was really what we wanted. I’m still learning to appreciate my parents’ culture and reconcile it with the culture that I grew up with and for me, cooking for Taco Maria is the best opportunity to explore that. I talk with family members back home to grill them about what ingredients may have gone into a sauce that I enjoyed 15 years ago. It’s a framework for me to discover elements of my culture that I lost.

Hessian Chef: For the Farm to Foodtruck Challenge at SoCo, do you have any ideas of what you’re expecting to cook?

Carlos: I have a bunch of specific things I’d love to be on the list that day. I’d love to see almonds. Nuts are one of my favorite things to eat and I love cooking them in every shape and form. I’d love to see persimmons. 

I’ll be honest. I’m incredibly nervous about the prospect of cooking competitively. It’s all in good fun and it’s just friendly competition, but for me, not just because I come from San Francisco where the idea of slow food was born, but I’m a very slow, pensive, and considered cook. To speed things up, that makes me pretty nervous.

For the contest, you have Chef Christie from Home Skillet, the guys at Piaggio, Andrew from Slapfish … I’m really nervous to be cooking with these people. They’re all well trained. 

But I’m really looking forward to it. The question for me, is whether to cook Mexican food or to cook the way I’ve been cooking for many years before I started doing this, which is to react to whatever is put in front of us. I’m sure that whatever ends up happening there will be some of our flavor profiles in it. 

In the end it’s like making dinner. What do you find in the refrigerator? What did you bring home from the market? I’m looking forward to having a lot of fun. 

Hessian Chef: Has SoCo kind of become a main station for you guys?

Carlos: It has. And I think one of the reasons maybe is SoCo is really generous in letting new trucks get a start in the game. And I think the audience at SoCo is really in tune with the kind of serious food that some of the trucks are serving. Barcelona, Tamarindo, Us. Rancho A Go Go … it seems like people at SoCo appreciate this kind of food.

The only way I know how to cook is to get ingredients from people I can meet face to face so we know where they’re coming from. To source great fruit that was picked that day or the day prior. And I think the audience at SoCo at the Collection during the week and especially at the Farmers’ Market on Saturday, they really respond to that. They’re hungry for that kind of cuisine. Something that reflects the freshness. 

Catch Carlos and his crew from Taco Maria on Saturday, November 19th at the SoCo Farmer’s Market for the Farm to Foodtruck Challenge. The market opens at 9am and the contest starts at 12pm. One truck will be crowned the winner at 1:30pm!

The event is described as:

Our Farm to Food Truck II will be on Saturday, November19th. 20 fabulous farmers and vendors, and 15 gourmet food trucks will be serving food at the SoCo Certified Farmers’ Market from 9am-2pm. Out of the 15, 6 Gourmet Food Truck Chefs will compete in our “Chopped”-cooking competition, where the food trucks go head to head, using SoCo Farmers’ Market ingredients. The Chefs begin by racing through the market, gathering ingredients & whipping up culinary masterpieces in the allotted 60 minutes. These creations will be served to our panel of top foodie judges!