Menudo!

SAN BERNARDINO -- Ray Calderon is a homegrown master.

Coming of age on the Westside in the late 1960s and early 1970s, Calderon fondly remembers working alongside his greatgrandmother, Jacinta Cabrera, at the family-owned tortilla shop at Sixth Street and Mount Vernon Avenue.

That was where she vouchsafed to him the subtleties of menudo, a dish born of Mexico's peasantry, who turned the spare and cheap cuts of meats they could afford into a spicy stew.

"My greatgrandma was old and always working hard," Calderon said. "And she was the best at making menudo."

Now 47, Calderon is a perennial contender in the city's growing menudo cooking contest, taking a first-place and three second-place titles since 2005.

The menudo contest has grown into a draw of its own at the annual California State Chili Cookoff, standing alongside the American West staple in an event that attracts more than 10,000 revelers and top chefs to the city every year.

At this year's cookoff, held May 3 at Perris Hill Park, Calderon came in second again to his rival Abel Silva, who has taken three first place trophies since Calderon took the inaugural crown in 2005.

Calderon, now a Yucaipa resident and 21-year county employee, says titles aren't what drives him now.

It's about the culture. Or better yet, the sharing of culture.

"It's really become an amazing thing," Calderon said. "Having so many people from different backgrounds coming to eat menudo ... It's really crossing over, becoming mainstream."

That menudo has become part of the chili cookoff is largely the work of Mike "Ughlee" Austin, the chili cookoff's chair and a man with a taste for change.

Austin launched the menudo contest - which pays $300 for first prize - in 2005, but had designs on the distinctive dish much earlier.

Austin said he and his wife "stumbled across it" when they stopped by a California menudo contest in the 1970s. Back then, the dish was well-hidden in Mexican enclaves.

Now, it's a central part of his beloved chili cookoff.

"We probably add 5,000 people to our event with the addition of the menudo contest," Austin said. "Our menudo cooks bring their food to the masses."

Calderon maybe the biggest benefactor of all. "Team Chintas," named in honor of his greatgrandmother, includes his wife, mother, two daughters and grandson.

They start cooking at Perris Hill Park at 4 p.m.the day before the event, and cook through the night, emerging with 35 gallons of menudo by sun-up.

"My family gives me the energy," Calderon said.

Ultimately, Austin expects his menudo contest to grow into its own phenomenon, no longer playing second-fiddle to the chili for which the cookoff is named.

"My goal is to one day spin off a menudo (cooking) association," Austin said.
But for next year, Calderon's sights are set on the chili cookoff again, where he may retain his title from equally talented Silva, the three-year defending champion.

But even if he doesn't, menudo has always been about more than winning.

"To me, menudo is family, it's tradition, it's history," he said. "It means that much to me."