Each of the 23 entries in the raw salsa category was spooned into small serving containers for the six judges to taste. Staff photo by Chris Howell.

I like all kinds of Mexican food, but I am rarely hungry enough to eat much of it by the time it comes to the table. For me, the Mexican food experience usually begins and ends with baskets of salty corn tortilla chips, and bowls of spicy tomato sauce to dip them in. If the chips are hot and fresh, and the salsa has the rich acidity of tomatoes, the fiery bite of chilies, and the indescribable pungency of cilantro, then my self restraint is out the window. I am full long before dinner arrives.

The addictive allure for me is in the salsa itself. Done right, salsa is a wake-up call to the senses, an explosion of flavor charged with all the electricity and heat of the music that shares its name. Chips alone are well and good but, like dry toast, they are clearly meant to be a vehicle for something better. Salsa, on the other hand, really great salsa, can be perfectly satisfying eaten with a spoon, all by itself.

Not that you should do that, of course, when there are so many other ways to eat it. Salsa means sauce in Spanish, and like any sauce, its job is to enhance the food it is served with. Grilled fish, roasted chicken, baked potatoes, even the humble omelet — very few foods aren't the better for a dollop of salsa on the side. Most Americans seem to agree; bottled salsas, once a rarity on US grocery shelves, today outsell that all-American condiment, ketchup.

I've been reading up on salsa lately, ever since Marcia Veldman asked me to be a judge in the 15th annual salsa contest sponsored by Bloomington Parks and Recreation and Bloomingfoods last Saturday at the Bloomington Community Farmers Market. I am always happy to be judgmental and opinionated on an informal basis, but as someone was asking me to do it in an official capacity, it seemed like a good idea to know what I was talking about.

The basic thing I learned about salsas is that there are no rules about salsas. Salsa can be anything from a pesto to a thick béchamel sauce, although most often in the U.S .it refers to a chunky mixture of raw or cooked vegetables, fruits, and herbs served with Mexican food. It can be simple or complicated: The basic Mexican table salsa that helps spoil our appetites in Mexican restaurants is usually no more than tomatoes, onions, chiles, cilantro and salt, occasionally with garlic or lime juice added.

Salsas can be fresh and uncooked (salsa fresca or cruda), or made with roasted, grilled or simmered vegetables. They can be made from scratch to eat right away, or canned by the home cook, or bought ready made at the store. Salsas contain everything from tomatoes and chiles to corn and beans to persimmons and grapefruit (I'm not kidding — with Scotch bonnet peppers, cilantro, lime juice, and a little sugar — puckery, sweet and lethal).

It turns out that no amount of reading can really prepare you to taste 33 different salsas shortly after breakfast on a Saturday morning. Although there were no persimmons and grapefruits entered in the salsa contest (at least, I don't think there were), there was very nearly everything else.

The other five judges and I filled out score sheets, ranking each salsa from 1 (low) to 5 (high) on everything from appearance and texture to flavor and aroma. The very first one I sniffed blasted my sinuses. It smelled terrific but was the last thing I smelled distinctly all day long. My other senses were working just fine, however, and we settled down to the business at hand, sipping salsas from plastic spoons and making notes about how they looked, crunched, and tasted.

As it happens, I was better prepared for the task than I thought — tasting salsa was a lot like grading exam papers. Some were clearly great, a few were clearly not, and a great many were in between — they weren't going to win the top prizes, but they wouldn't disgrace any table they found themselves on either.

There were 10 entries in the cooked salsa category, and 23 in the uncooked. They ranged from the simple to the exotic. My top ranking choices in each category turned out to be the first prize winners, which was reassuring.

The first prize cooked salsa, made by Nancy Dorcates, Lillian Marquez and Gracia Valliant, was called "Salsa Guerrero-Style." It just had the basic tomato, onion, chile ingredients, but the tomatoes and peppers were pan-roasted first, giving the salsa a deep red color and smoky flavor. It was chopped up fine but kept some crunchy bits, and the flecks of green chili, red tomatoes, and white onion made it very pretty in a Mexican flag kind of way. It was a super chip-dipping salsa (although not bad in a spoon, either).

The first prize uncooked salsa was completely different. Made by Kevin Bird, "Summer Harvest" combined the usual ingredients, plus citrus juice, chopped ripe nectarines, and tender white corn. The vegetables and fruit were not pureed, but kept in small dice so it was gorgeous to look at as well as to eat. It probably wasn't the best for scooping with chips, but it would have been wasted on chips anyway. This salsa belonged spooned over crispy grilled fish or chicken. It was a standout solo, in the spoon, and would have made a great salad, nestled on a bed of butter lettuce.

By the end of the morning, I thought I'd probably had my fill of salsa for a good long time. And it was a long time, if you measure it in dog years. By the next night, I was at Tortilla Flat, dipping into what I think is the best restaurant salsa in Bloomington. The owner, my fellow salsa judge Becky Wann, had promised me the recipe for this column, and I wanted to see how it stacked up against the contest entries. Just as I recalled, it was fabulous. I skipped my dinner.

Christine would love to hear from you about food or your favorite dining experience. Contact her via e-mail at cbarbour@heraldt.com. Food Fare partner Jennifer Piurek will explore your child's school lunch box in her column next week.