I’m so sick and tired of false advertising in this country. “New” never is. “Americans for Peace” probably aren’t. I could go on and on. So when I found a salsa that claims to be both “Gourmet” and “Uniquely Different,” my skeptical nature is in overdrive. I’ve actually looked at this salsa for the past two months and thought to myself, “Those pretentious pricks.”
But this week there was a coupon. My wife loves coupons. I can buy virtually anything as long as I save a buck. Buried in the name was my favorite chile, the hatch. So with a wife-approved coupon in hand, I grabbed a jar.
Hot off my last hatch disappointment, I took a break from my current breakfast favorite mesquite salsa to try Mateo’s. Upon opening, I caught a strong whiff of a very familiar scent that I couldn’t put my finger on. It smelled like a great Mexican restaurant salsa, fresh and strong. Hmmm, my curiosity was piqued.
To my utter surprise, this salsa is “Uniquely Different.” I can’t place the unique flavor, but I’ve had it before, and I do like it quite a bit. But the biggest surprise was the complexity of the flavor. Salsa is not a complex food. Normally, there are a few things my palette notices, but with Mateo’s, my taste buds are busy trying to figure out what all those different flavors are. It is supreme. It’s everything I expect a hatch-based salsa to be.
It’s good as an additive, and it’s fantastic with tortilla chips. Mateo’s makes a whole series of salsas, so I’ll be trying most of those as well.
The only negative to this salsa is the added sugar. There are still only 10 calories per 2 tbsp, but there are 2g of sugar in that 32g serving. As I need to completely remove sugar from my diet, I will, unfortunately, have to limit my use of Mateo’s. So that little ingredient I can’t place, that’s so familiar to me? Probably sugar. Damn my ancestors for these lousy genes.
I will say though, that while there is sugar, I do appreciate the lack of chemicals.
The Naive Romantic 
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