REVERSE ENGINEERING:i ~#~ZOT~SAZSA

They woul.dn’f give us the recipe,but that d=dn’t stop us.

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Surveillance pho/agraphy~" JAMES CHIANO

Salsa phofography." KEVIN TWOMEY

mon8 a certain circle of hipster con-noisseurs, Papalote, a little Mexicanrestaurant on 24[h Streetin San Fran-isco’s Mission district, is famous for

its salsa--rich, brick-colored, smoky with charredtomatoes, and packin8 a wallop of heat.The bur-tiros are 8ood, but they’re beside the point. Peo-ple 8o to Papalote for the salsa. "Your senses areawakened and stimulated and your soul is trans-ported up and down the majestic mountains andmysterious valleys of our beloved homeland,"says the websi[e (www.papalote-shcom). Or, asone reviewer put i[,"That salsa is like crack."

I want the recipe. I call Victor Escobedo, oneof the owners, and he tells me that it’s up to hisbrother Misuek Misuel says no. The recipe, based

on that of their late father, can never leave thebosom of their family. I wheedle, I plead. I claimsalsa dependence. I ask him if he will sell it, and

he scoffs: "The last time someone asked me that, the price was S3oo,ooo--and it’s gone up since then."

Fine. I will do witllout his recipe, instead, I will resort to the time-honored tradition of steahng trade secrets. Not exactly stealing, really; Iwill reverse-engineer the salsa.

Victor has let slip a clue: the tomatoes are romas. From the black pin-points of charred tomato skin in the salsa, l deduce they are roasted orgrilled. Papalote has craftily disguised the salsa’s remaining ingredients byblending everything to a puree.

Max La Rivi~re-Hedrick, CHOW food editor and tireless salsa Sherlock,suggests we sieve it. When we inspect the resulting particles, we can seefragments of leaf that must be cilantro, as well as other white andgreenspecks. Max decides that, even though Mexicans tend to use white onionsin their salsas, these look like scallions. So far, the salsa seems straightfor-ward. But the chiles pose a challenge. Jalapefio or chipotle? Ancho or ser-rano? Then, as I stare at the tiny specks, I have a revelation: We have to godeeper. We will break the salsa into the very building blocks of life itself.In short, we will get its DNA analyzed. Today, science has developed to thepoint where we can identify a murderer from a single hair; surely it will bechild’s play to figure out what’s in this salsa.

I persuade a friend to put me in touch with Richard Hamilton, a biotechexpert. Hamilton is the CEO of Ceres, a Southern California firm that makesgenetically engineered plants. I ask him whether DNA analysis can indeedreveal the salsa’s secret. Yes, Hamilton responds via email, there is a labo-ratory in the Netherlands called Keygene that might be able to do it--if I

have a million dollars.My heart sinks. For thatamount, l could prob-ably buy the recipe fromVictor and Miguel.

Shattered by thenews, I can barely fin-ish reading Hamilton’semail, which explainsthat there is not enoughplant data in GenBank,

my salsa. Essentially,if I want its DNA, t first

have to pay someone to map the chile genome. I am sorely dis-appointed by modern technology. They can cross-breed goats with spidersand weave their milk into bulletproof vests, but it costs a million dollars tofigure out a simple salsa recipe?

Researching the subject on the Internet, I discover that DNA analysis offood is chiefly used to detect things that shouldn’t be there: specks of nutthat might trigger allergies, meat in vegetarian products, pork in kosherproducts. Strangely, most of the labs that do this sort of thing seem to be onthe other side of the Atlantic. Europe, it turns out, is light-years ahead of tileStates in this field. Partly it’s because European manufacturers are legallyobliged to mention on the label if a food contains genetically modifiedorganisms (GMOs), and DNA analysis is used to disclose these. Meat scareshave also fueled the food-analysis industry. After mad cow, foot-and-mouth,dioxin in feed, and other panics, European meat producers are using DNAtracking to restore consumer confidence. A DNA test will confirm what cow

a steak came from, so that the seller can guarantee that the cow was, forexample, organically reared and grass-fed. (American meat producers callthis "gate-to-plate tracking," and are now beginning to use it, too.)

I track down Genome Express, a food-analysis lab in France, where theyare experts in exposing fraudulent foie gras. (Apparently some manufactur-ers are bulking out the p~.tg with inexpensive pork or chicken liver.) gut canthey figure out the sphinx-like salsa?

After several emails, I manage to explain my mission to Genome Express’sFranck Robert. (Because my French is barely enough to order a cafg au lair,Monsieur Robert is kind enough to correspond in English.) If I wish to iden-tify a"species" in my salsa, he tells me, they can do it for a song, but identify-ing vegetables is much harder. You’d think it Would be easier to identify ajalapefio than a horse, but the DNA analysis of food is chiefly used to detectthe presence of animal substances, and the science of vegetable detectionis not very advanced. "in plant, the ’marker’ we want to use is ’in developpe-ment’ at this time," writes Monsieur Robert in his heroic English. "So I makeyou a proposal: Without any garanty, we test our technology on your prod-uct. The cost for you: Zero." Comme c’est gentil! I promise myself that if hesolves the riddle of the relish, I will send him a crate of it.

I have a Pepsi cup of salsa in my refrigerator {last time I visited, Papalotewas out of jars).l open it and see that, in his eagerness to assist me in myresearch, my husband has polished off half. But there is just enough--Mon-sieur Robert said three or four ounces will do the trick, ldecant the peskypuree into a sterilized jam pot and screw the lid on tight. At the post office,I roll it in bubble wrap, pack it in a box, and dispatch it across the Atlantic. Itrust that the scientists at Genome Express will have the self-control not toeat it--at least, not before they’ve analyzed it. I imagine them poring over itas if it held the secret to a crime.

If Monsieur Robert succeeds, the implications are revolutionary. In thefuture, no recipe will remain mysterious for long. There will be no moresecret sauces, closely guarded through generations, and the folks at KFC willbe forced to reveal their blend of al herbs and spices.

But the days pass, and there is no word from Monsieur Robert. Is itpossible the French will fail me? Determined not to give up, l turn to BarbStuckey of Mattson & Company, which develops new products for the foodand beverage industry. Does Mattson ever have to reverse-engineer recipes?And if so, do they have any special techniques?Yes, Stuckey says. In fact, sherecently worked on a "matching" project. A company that makes "frozenbeef-based entrees" wanted to start a new factory on the West Coast, but itdiscovered that its East Coast manufacturer owned the rights to the recipes.The company hired Mattson to figure them out.

Stuckey is kind enough to explain, step by step, just how she and herteam go about replicating one of the client’s frozen meatloaf dinners. Stepone is to "assemble a team of trained palates" (food technicians, chefs, andproiect managers) and "identify the flavor components." Step two is to getthe "product specifications," measuring such things as viscosity, pN, mois-ture level, and sugar content. This is all information your tongue will tellyou, but not with the same accuracy and precision.

Seduced by the scientific sound of words like "pH" and "viscosity,"I ask Stuckey how much it would cost to hire her team of trained palates."Between fifteen and twenty thousand a month," she says. Considering thatthe last quote was a million dollars, I think hiring her is pretty cheap--untilI remember I don’t have any money. And what is step three? "Trial and error,"Stuckey says. Trial and error? That just means messing around in the kitchen.I brighten up. I could do that on my own.

I check in with Monsieur Robert. He asks for more time. But while I have

Which one isPapalofe’s salsa, andwhich one is ours?

been exploring the frontiers of science, Max has been busy in the kitchenmaking variations of the salsa and tracking his results in a spreadsheet. Heexplains how his salsa sleuthing has progressed. First, he knew that therewere two chiles because he saw two different specks in his sieve. Lookingfor a chile with a kick, he tried jalapefios, then habaneros, but finally settledon dried chiles de arbol. He’d also discerned a fruity, chocolatey base note inthe salsa, so he used dried pasifia peppers (often used in mole). Now he waspretty confident that he had the ingredients down.

But should he cook them? Papalote’s salsa has a uniform flavor, whichseems to indicate that the ingredients are all cooked together. Aftercharring the tomatoes, Max threw them in a pot with some water and thedried chiles and then blended everything together. So close. He threw ina pinch of sugar. Closer. But he still wasn’t satisfied. His salsa lacked therich mouth-feel of Papalote’s--a salsa so thick and creamy that somecustomers have asked Victor whether it contains mayonnaise or peanutbutter (Victor denies this).

Max tried thickening his salsa with cornstarch and pectin, but these gaveit a"glassy quality." After hours el labor, Max’s eyes were taking on a glassyquality, too. He persevered. He tried thickening the salsa with cassava and

with masa harina(corn flour), sometimes used in salsa, but the cassavamade the sauce watery, and the masa’s flavor was too intrusive. He triedpotato {sometimes sneaked into European sauces to make them creamier),but it didn’t make much difference. He tried adding vegetable oil, but whenhe left the salsa to sit, the oil floated to the top, something that never hap-pens to the vexing Papalote salsa.

Meanwhile, Monsieur Robert is missing in action. But Max is ready. In theend, he found that toasted pumpkin seeds, one of the ingredients of mole,produced the closest simulacrum of the salsa, and he presents his creation.We dip in a chip and taste. It is absolutely sublime. The tomato flavor is moreprominent than that of Papalote’s, and the chile does not overwhelm. Whilethe Papalote flavor hits you all at once, the flavor of Max’s salsa unfolds inthe mouth like that of a fine wine. In fact, I cannot stop eating it. Incredible tosay, I think it’s actually better than Papalote’s. I imagine the Escobedo broth-ers begging me for the recipe. Perhaps we will sell it to them for S3oo, ooo. X

Helena Echlin is a freelance writer based in San Francisco. She wrotethe novel Gone (Seeker & Warburg), Her articles have appeared in Britishnewspapers including The Times, The Sunday Times, and The Guardian.