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Table Conversations: Ingrid Hoffman

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By JEFF HOUCK | The Tampa Tribune

Published: October 31, 2007

To Ingrid Hoffman, host of the Miami-based Food Network series "Simply Delicioso," food is like music.

"You know how a song will remind you of a certain day, a place, a person? To me, food is that. Recipes remind me of people, of places, of a time."

That explains why her upcoming cookbook, "Simply Delicioso: A Collection of Everyday Recipes With a Latin Twist," will be full of recipes that evoke family memories when it publishes in February. Writing it was "full of emotion for me," she says.

Hoffman also hosts a Spanish-language cooking and lifestyle show, "Delicioso," on Galavision/Univision. On Saturday, she'll be in Tampa doing a cooking demonstration during Arte 2007 at the Tampa Bay Performing Arts Center.

"The weirdest thing is that I used to buy cookbooks, and I would take them to bed. I would look at them at night, look at the pictures, look at some ingredients," she says. "But I have never in my life taken a recipe and gone to the kitchen and made it. I always used to jokingly say, 'Who the hell needs a handbook for cooking or making love?' I could not comprehend the idea that someone would need that."

Which is why, she says, she made her cookbook about how to add Latin spice to everyday meals.

She recently talked by phone from her home in Miami about the challenges of appealing to English-speaking viewers.

For somebody who hasn't seen your show on Food Network, how would you describe the food to them?

It's modern everyday food with a Latin twist, and when I say Latin twist, the idea is to ease people into … especially in Season No. 1, my objective was to ease the American public in general into Latin flavors. So, I sort of made a lot of food that they could connect with, that they already knew, but I gave it a Latin spin.

I do the Latin barbecue, so you see me doing the babyback ribs with a tamarind glaze. So the proposition was … I don't want to smack you with something you're completely unfamiliar with. I want to ease you into it.

Same thing with Latin slaw. I did it with mango and cilantro. Then the corn on the cob was with the chimichurri butter. [They are] still things people can connect with, yet the great thing is that if you've been doing your barbecue always the same way and you're in a bit of a rut, here's an alternative.

They picked you up for a second season.

Yes! It's very exciting. I've been doing my Latin show for a couple years now, and you sort of know that you grow at a pace of X every year, which has been 200 percent … [laughs] …which has been great.

I was going into a new market and I was really, really scared. I had no idea how this would come over.

Really? That surprises me. It's not like you stepped off the bus and just started doing a food show. You had some experience with it.

Yeah, but, you know, it was very different. I had the experience of doing it in Spanish and with food to mostly people who knew Latin food.

I always use the following example: I love Chinese food. Would I ever stop to watch a Chinese cooking show? I don't know that I would. It's that sort of a thing. It's sort of too foreign to me, although it isn't because I know Chinese food inside out, and I love Chinese on Sundays.

That was my fear. How do I come and do all this typical Latin food when you might go, "Eh, well, we don't eat that way in our house, so I'm not really interested in watching you."

So it was "How do I get them first to know me and trust me and then perhaps dive into it deeper, here or there?" I was really scared. I didn't know what was going to happen.

Luckily, after four episodes aired, we were officially in talks for renewal, and it was announced after our sixth episode aired. So I've been very, very happy. The fans who have come on board have just been tremendous.

The funny thing is that every single Latin country that watches, it's like, "How come you don't do Salvadoran food?" You can't please everybody.

Yeah, I know the feeling. Whenever we do a particular ethnic cuisine in our Flavor section in the Tribune, we essentially incite a United Nations riot. They always see it as some sort of snub, some sort of slur.

I wish I could air long enough so that we could actually do it by country and then by region of each country. I could probably be on the air forever if I was to do that.

Do you think of yourself as someone who aims at an Anglo or a bilingual crowd? Is there any target audience that you're aiming at?

I don't sit around thinking I'm aiming for this or aiming for that. In general, I'd like everybody. I do understand that the people who watch my Latin show like watching it in Spanish. Maybe their English isn't as proficient. Maybe, you know, culturally they relate better in Spanish.

The shows are different. There's a little bit there for everybody.

Obviously, I've tailored the American show to be able to introduce flavors. Would it be appealing to a Hispanic? Yes, it would because there is a lot of modern food. I sort of take and play with things we've all known, but use them differently. I think it would be appealing to both. I would hope so.

It kind of comes off to me when I watch sort of like if you have a friend and your friend cooks differently, wherever they're from. They show you a trick and you go home and you try it in something and go, "Oh, yeah, maybe that will work in this and this and this."

Exactly.

Also, the prevalence of things that have been traditionally known as Latin or Hispanic spices or meats are now becoming so available in mainstream markets that there's almost no distinction anymore.

Exactly. For me, I like the creative process.

Doing a recipe exactly like my grandmother used to do? OK, I can see maybe doing that once a year, but how do I take this and make it modern and new and give it other twists? That's the part I like in the kitchen: to create.

So I do a lot of what is considered Nuevo Latino or Nuevo Caribbean, but I make it to be an everyday food.

Keyword: Stew, to listen to the rest of this interview at Jeff Houck's blog.

Reporter Jeff Houck can be reached at (813) 259-7324 and jhouck@tampatrib.com.

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