Armed with 20 gallons of the
”
Stinkin’ Clams of Gilroy,
”
Gilroy resident Rick Santos will vie today for a top spot in the
annual Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk chowder cookoff.
Gilroy – Armed with 20 gallons of the “Stinkin’ Clams of Gilroy,” Gilroy resident Rick Santos will vie today for a top spot in the annual Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk chowder cookoff.
Santos – along with wife Debbie Santos, their nephew and two family friends – has spent the last few years tweaking his recipe, which he refuses to disclose.
The Gilroy team first entered the competition in 2001 and didn’t win any awards, but they gained a newfound appreciation for the cookoff.
“I’ve enjoyed cooking just as a home hobby for quite some time,” said Santos, who works in facilities maintenance for the Gilroy Unified School District. “As a family, we had gone to the festival for the past 10 or 12 years, and about five years ago we decided we wanted to enter.”
After tinkering with the recipe, the Gilroy team entered again in 2002 and took home honors as the most-tasted chowder in the individual category and the third most-tasted chowder overall, a category open to professional chefs from restaurants across the Bay Area.
“It was a boost of confidence for me to even stand with them on the same podium,” Santos said.
In 2003, the group again won the most-tasted chowder in the individual category. They didn’t enter last year because Rick and Debbie went to Europe to visit their daughter Aimee, an Airman First Class in the U.S. Air Force.
Over the five years since they first entered, the group has exacted their process of simmering and sampling their soup.
Ralph Santos, Rick’s nephew and a college student in San Luis Obispo, helps prepare the soup, while Debbie and Carol Marques, a family friend, ladle up the samples.
Carol’s husband, Ernie Marques, serves as the frontman, dressing up like a clam and enticing people to choose their booth.
“It’s a lot of work leading up to it, but it’s rewarding when you see the people and they’re so (eager) to try your soup,” Rick Santos said.
Santos’ recipe is a mish-mash of hundreds he’s researched.
“I look at what the ingredients are as opposed to how much there is of each ingredient,” he said.
Through the years, the Santos’ friends and family have doubled as critics, tasting the recipe and offering opinions.
Santos experimented with the recipe for six months leading up to the team’s debut in 2001. He also toyed with the measurements so he could gauge how much of each ingredient was needed to make 10 gallons of chowder.
“Only two or three gallons are required for the contest, but I figured if I’m going to do this, I’m going to go out in a bang of glory,” he said. “Well, we got through 10 gallons in half the time we were allotted to serve, and we still had a line of 50 or 60 people waiting to be served.”
So, in 2002, Santos and his team made 20 gallons, split between two 40-quart pots. They ran out again.
“I’m looking around thinking, ‘I’m nothing special, what’s going on here?'” Santos said, laughing. “It’s so well received by the people, it’s amusing to me. We had a guy waiting in line because he was so excited to be the first to try our soup.”
The team brought 20 gallons in 2003 and again ran out, but Santos said that’s about all they can handle. In the two hours they have to serve, Debbie Santos and Carol Marques dish up more than 1,200 three-ounce samples.
“Their shoulders get sore,” Rick Santos joked.
Depending on the weather, which is forecast to be cloudy with temperatures in the 60s, Santos said he expects the cookoff will attract as many visitors as it does every year.
And even if the team walks away with no awards, the Gilroy resident said he’s content knowing they served up some darn good clam chowder – and made someone’s weekend a little brighter.
