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October 17, 2024 23 mins

To celebrate the launch of Eva’s new cookbook, Eva and Maite talk about how cookbooks can serve as windows into cultures and histories. They discuss the first published cookbooks (one of which involves a plagiarizing scandal!), cookbook history in Mexico, and how recipes can serve as a form of activism.

 


Books discussed in this episode include:

Libro de cocina de Fray Geronimo de San Pelayo, 18th century

Libro de cocina Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz, 17th century

UTSA’s Mexican Cookbook 

Recetario para la memoria

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Episode Transcript

Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
My name is Evil Longoria and I am Myra and
welcome to Hungry for History, a podcast that explores are
past and present through food. On every episode, we'll talk
about the history of some of our favorite dishes, ingredients,
and beverages from our culture.

Speaker 2 (00:17):
So make yourself at home.

Speaker 3 (00:19):
When O great, you guys, today's episode, I would probably.

Speaker 4 (00:26):
Say it is going to be Mytha's favorite episode.

Speaker 2 (00:29):
I wonder why ever, she's been bugging to.

Speaker 4 (00:32):
Do an episode about cookbooks because you are obsessed and
you're a huge collector.

Speaker 2 (00:39):
Can you please show them what you brought.

Speaker 5 (00:41):
I brought a few, and I left so many at home.

Speaker 4 (00:43):
And they're old, you guys, these are like some of them,
the pages are falling out. She has originals, first editions.
I don't even know cookbook.

Speaker 2 (00:51):
Is first yet? Do they do? They do? Yeah?

Speaker 5 (00:56):
I love, I love, I love, And you have a
cookbook coming out.

Speaker 2 (01:02):
I'm excited about that.

Speaker 4 (01:04):
So I'm excited about it because it's it's finally Mexican
specific because of my travels through Mexico and there's so
many things you think you'll remember, Like I'm like, I'll
always remember my tomatillosas and then I will go away
for a year in France, and when I get back,
I'm like, what, wait, was it cilantro and garlic first?

Speaker 5 (01:24):
Like?

Speaker 4 (01:24):
And then I'm like, oh, so the factor of writing
stuff down is important. It's important. And my first cookbook
was because of that. It was like born. It's like
eleven years ago I did my first cookbook and it
was because it was born from all of us fighting
about my aunt's recipe who passed away, and she had
the best masa recipe and we were like, you.

Speaker 2 (01:47):
Put that sheina in the massa?

Speaker 4 (01:49):
I know you don't you put it in the met
And literally it was almost a fistfight in the Maliday
that we were making it.

Speaker 2 (01:54):
And I was like, nobo, I wrote this down when
she was a lot so that PERSI.

Speaker 4 (02:00):
No, we were her children, okay, And she's the one
that taught me how to cook.

Speaker 2 (02:05):
And so I have.

Speaker 4 (02:08):
All of her cookbooks and her notes and like little
stickies and her handwriting, and I just like to open
them and smell the cookbook because she was a smoker,
so all the cookbooks have like this cigarette stinky smell it.

Speaker 2 (02:21):
Only you know feels good to me? Right, No, I
get it as it takes me like right, back to
your kitchen. Well, and so I do.

Speaker 4 (02:29):
The idea of preserving legacy through food is so important.

Speaker 2 (02:35):
It's like one of the most important books you can write.

Speaker 5 (02:37):
I agree, one hundred percent agree, because then you record this,
you share it with the world, but even more importantly,
you're going to share it with SANTHI. Yeah, she's going
to share it with you know, with Bizcus, you know,
maybe one day. So it's this idea as capturing a
moment and then those recipes.

Speaker 2 (02:57):
Will you know change.

Speaker 6 (03:00):
But well, and also books offer like more than recipes,
and I think it offers a look into your soul
as a person, like if you're if you're the writer,
like a window into a culture, time period, a person's life.

Speaker 4 (03:16):
Just like a sense of intimacy behind the page. I
love to read cookbooks like a novel. I will sit
down and go from page one to the end and
I just sit there and I tag things what I'm
going to make.

Speaker 2 (03:26):
But I read it like a like a book, like
a narrative book. Yeah, I'm the same, but because you
can learn so much.

Speaker 5 (03:33):
Yeah, like especially reading between the lines of the recipes
and ingredients, and it's fascinating to me.

Speaker 2 (03:39):
Fast I actually don't like cookbooks that don't have a
little story. Yeah. I love stories too, Yeah, because recipes
are stories.

Speaker 4 (03:45):
Yeah, yeah, I think they're like for me, my first
one was a memoir of my life in that time,
told through the food and the recipes, because I was
married to a Frenchman, but I grew up in Texas
and we lived in France, and so I had French sauces,
and then I had and then I had you know,
I was in China and a man taught me this
ride rice and this one is very Mexican, more like

(04:09):
a memoir of my time through Mexico what I learned.

Speaker 2 (04:13):
But I feel like cookbooks offer so much more the recipes.
Oh my gosh. Yes, yes.

Speaker 5 (04:18):
So when your first cookbook, were you able to capture
your aunts Malis, I don't know.

Speaker 4 (04:24):
I make great demalist. I don't know if it's her recipe.

Speaker 2 (04:28):
So nobody knows.

Speaker 4 (04:30):
She was also like very strict on the folding and
the massa to meat ratio and the it was very stressful.

Speaker 2 (04:38):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (04:39):
I was like, I'm not the roller or the meat filler.
I will be the counter, you know, I'll put it
in the ziplock bag. I think we should make it
a habit of drinking before every otherisody.

Speaker 5 (04:53):
I want to show this that Eva does this Martha Stewart,
She's total Martha Stewart.

Speaker 2 (04:57):
But the ice Q is a little rose orange juice,
frozen orange juice in these rose molds and you just
throw it in your prosecco and it's just not only
pretty but sweeter. I like this. I don't like Champagne.
I like I like Caaba, I love and prosecco. I love.
Call me Maria Stewart. What do you look for in

(05:20):
a cookbook?

Speaker 5 (05:22):
I love things that are that are simple, that don't
have a thousand steps and a thousand.

Speaker 2 (05:27):
Recipes or complicated equipment for that.

Speaker 4 (05:30):
Get you a Julian Yeah, board out my fucking or
that thing to make a French puree of potatoes, you
need the riser.

Speaker 2 (05:40):
Yes, yeah, I don't have to have one. Yes, probably
because of that.

Speaker 4 (05:44):
Or may be making dumplings and they're like, get out
the dumpling maker. I like simple.

Speaker 2 (05:50):
Food, really good. I like colorful food. Yes. I love
good pictures.

Speaker 5 (05:56):
I love it when it's when the directions are clear, like,
but this is my favorite.

Speaker 2 (05:59):
I was actual looking at this before I came here.
And I thought that I would bring it.

Speaker 5 (06:03):
But I was like, oh, Eva probably has it, because
I think we talked about this once. This is one
of the best cookbooks, Solt that Acid Heat and there's
and there's a Netflix series yeah, and it's impressive.

Speaker 4 (06:14):
Is one episode of Salt Acid.

Speaker 2 (06:19):
I learned so much from this time. Always all your
chicken in your meat. Yeah.

Speaker 5 (06:23):
But then she describes about, you know, roasting and what
happens when you roast, what happens when you poach, like
what happens to the protein. She explains everything so so clearly,
and she's teaching you something. So I always love to learn.

Speaker 4 (06:38):
I love the acid wheel, the wheel of acid and
where the acids come from Africa, Asia, South America and.

Speaker 2 (06:44):
North America, Europe. O god, I know, wonder how long
did your credit write this? I mean, this is so
well researched. But I love the illustrations. I want to say,
I love a good picture. I love picture. I love
a picture. If it doesn't have a picture, it really
pisses me off. But what about illustria.

Speaker 5 (07:02):
I used to think that way, but now I'm I'm
really liking cookbooks that have illustrations.

Speaker 2 (07:08):
And I have really nice illustrations. Yeah, they're nice. How
did you choose your recipes for your new cookbook? You
know what?

Speaker 4 (07:16):
The first time I was given a directive of light
you know, ten main plates, ten beef, ten chicken, TENNS
ten and.

Speaker 2 (07:26):
I really made dictate my dishes.

Speaker 4 (07:29):
This time I vomited all my dishes with my co
writer and I was.

Speaker 2 (07:34):
Like blah, and she goes, wow, you have a lot
of soups.

Speaker 4 (07:38):
We should do you know, sofas that satisfy chapter because
I have so many.

Speaker 2 (07:44):
And I was like, oh, that's a good one, like
and so she didn't. It was a different it's a
different publisher too, and so they were like what do
you want?

Speaker 4 (07:51):
And I wanted to do it kind of like in
my journey of how I did it, and then also
the memory and the people I wanted to honor, Like
I mean, there was this amazing There is an amazing no.

Speaker 7 (08:02):
Bile sabcia in my cookbook that I got from this
chef in Guadala Fara and uh Fabian and he was amazing,
and I was like this, people have to know about this,
Like for vegans who don't want to eat.

Speaker 2 (08:17):
Our city check never, but you're're going to make it tomorrow.
And so I was like, that has to be in it.
So it didn't.

Speaker 4 (08:23):
I didn't let it, let the table of contents dictate.
I just wrote and wrote down all my things. And
then once we sorted it out, she would go, you're
really thin on and right like or do you? Or
she goes, should we move tacos out of and I
said the meal. Tacos are a meal. It's not a

(08:45):
it's not an appetite. So she's like, I think we
need a taco this chapter, right, And I was like okay.
So then it forced me to build out chapter and
so yeah, but it's fun.

Speaker 2 (08:55):
It's a lot of fun. It is so fun. I
loved it.

Speaker 5 (08:58):
I have to say every day days my husband is like,
when are you going to make that pasta Eva's past thanks.

Speaker 2 (09:05):
Yes.

Speaker 5 (09:06):
Every day he's like, oh, so, where are you going
to talk about?

Speaker 2 (09:14):
After the break, we get into the first cookbooks.

Speaker 5 (09:17):
Ever published, one that involves a plagiarizing scandal.

Speaker 2 (09:21):
That's when we come back. We didn't always have a
printing press, So how were people making cookbooks back in
the day? How were they passing on all of these recipes?

Speaker 5 (09:34):
So in the days before the printing press was invented,
and it was invented in Germany in fourteen forty, so
right before it was invented, kitchen manuals were handwritten. They
were handwritten, they were handwritten, they were copied, and they
were sold to professional chefs, and the content in these
books was similar and together they.

Speaker 2 (09:54):
Paid the way for a cookbook culture.

Speaker 5 (09:57):
But it was basically, you know, many scripts, so there's
this idea you know, your aunt that you mentioned, or
your mom or whatever writing down the recipes. So there
was of course always that the family recipes. There was
also this culture of copying them and handing them mat
to professional chefs, which already gives you a sense that

(10:18):
the professional the chefs were literate. So this is when
you think of the middle age.

Speaker 4 (10:23):
I was thinking about them, which is really interesting, especially
women who want read.

Speaker 2 (10:27):
Like when was the first cookbook? Was there first? Like
recorded year of the first cookbook?

Speaker 5 (10:32):
So there're five of the first five cookbooks, so fourteen
forty the printing was invented in Germany, and cookbooks were
right up there among the first printed books Bibles, Bible,
it was Homer's Odyssey.

Speaker 2 (10:47):
Okay, and it was good books. Wow, So there were
a few of them.

Speaker 5 (10:51):
There was one super interesting one, a German cookbook that
was published in Nuremberg in fourteen eighty five. It's called
Mastering the Kitchen and it includes the first recipe for
jelly donut. But there's one that I'm super fascinated by
her too, the one that involves the plagiarizing scandal. Yeah,
so this one is a manuscript. We talked about this

(11:15):
one another, Yeah, the Fidale here the Roman style macaroni
in the Vermicelli, which is the Fideale.

Speaker 2 (11:25):
So this is fourteen sixty five.

Speaker 5 (11:27):
It was the most important of these, you know, manuscripts
that were handwritten, copied and sold. It's called The Art
of Cooking and it's by a chef named Master Martino,
and he was the most famous chef of his time.

Speaker 2 (11:41):
He was he was Roman. Yeah, he was from Rome.
He was Roman. And it's one of the best marks
of early European Gastromic literature in the sense that the
sort of end of the Middle Ages, beginning of the Renaissance.
So this is fourteen sixty five.

Speaker 5 (11:59):
But then one of the.

Speaker 2 (12:00):
First published cookbooks is this one, which is what year,
This is fourteen seventy, so pretty early.

Speaker 5 (12:08):
So Virtilo Melsacci was his name, and he goes by
Platina by the name Platina. So he was not a cook.
And this is what's really interesting to me. Platina was
not a cook. He had been to Rome nine years
before this game.

Speaker 2 (12:21):
Was a scholar. He was a scholar. He was a
Vatican librarian who was a scholar.

Speaker 5 (12:26):
He had been to Rome nine years earlier. He'd had
an amazing meal prepared.

Speaker 2 (12:30):
By that guy.

Speaker 4 (12:32):
Got this guy, Yeah, he Martino from Martino and he.

Speaker 5 (12:37):
Plagiarized before they were copyright last before there was.

Speaker 2 (12:40):
He he was like, I'm gonna write down these recipes.
I'm gonna write down these recipes. I'm gonna put my
name on that. He does mention his name. I had
these recipes best cook in Rome, Da Da da da.
And then but so what happened? So nothing happened because
there were no you know, was Martino like he's probably yeah,

(13:00):
he was probably like what the fuck? But yeah, this guy,
this guy is.

Speaker 5 (13:05):
A scholar, right, But he talks about like there's a
whole section on setting the table, on.

Speaker 2 (13:11):
Salting, it's like the pre salt aside.

Speaker 5 (13:14):
But he also has the recipes and he and he
talks about you know, nutritional asks of it and food
safety and medical recipes and so it's kind of set
a tone of you know, what you can include in
a cookbook other than just the recipes. So it was

(13:35):
a huge success. He actually plating app he plagiarized it.
But he also spent some time in prison for plotting
to kill the pope.

Speaker 4 (13:43):
At the time what he looks like sounds like.

Speaker 3 (13:48):
A horrible person, but he loved one of the flagiarizing,
plot kill plotting, the killing the like, no, let's move on,
let's move from back, Let's not give them his flowers.

Speaker 2 (14:01):
Okay, but I will say some wait.

Speaker 4 (14:02):
This was Europe, so this is all europe whiz cookbooks
or the idea of cookbooks come into Mexico and like
Latin America because you know, Mexican cuisine is one of
only two cuisines honored Bionesco as a cultural treasure, French
cuisine and Mexican cuisine because you can trace the roots
to its inception, right, and so because of that, how

(14:26):
did they pass down these recipes or these.

Speaker 2 (14:29):
You know plates and these iconic dishes.

Speaker 4 (14:32):
Yeah, if they didn't write it down, like when did
it come to Mexico.

Speaker 5 (14:36):
Yeah, that's such an interesting question because we don't actually
see the first published cookbook until eighteen thirty one Mexico.

Speaker 2 (14:43):
But that's late, it's really late.

Speaker 5 (14:45):
So there has been already this flourishing cookbook culture. I mean,
fourteen seventy they weren't even expensive.

Speaker 2 (14:52):
To buy a cookbook. It wasn't expensive, it.

Speaker 5 (14:54):
Was cheap, and so so it's interesting. So you know,
of course, in pre Columbia and Mesoamerica, indigeno cultures recorded
their culinary practices in codexes, but nothing like a recipe, like,
no cookbooks there were, you know, but there was this documentation,
and so by the time of the conquest, of.

Speaker 2 (15:14):
Course there's this flourishing cookbook culture.

Speaker 5 (15:16):
And in Mexico the use of the printing press was
limited to printing ecclesiastical documents, legal documents, nothing as sort
of superfluous as a cookbook. But all of these cookbooks,
and you just mentioned France, and this one it's a
little bit later, this is sixteen fifty three, but this
is one of the earliest French cookbooks, and the French

(15:40):
cook by Lover and he was the most famous chef
of the time.

Speaker 2 (15:43):
So this cookbook.

Speaker 5 (15:44):
All of these cookbooks existed in Mexico, So Spanish cookbooks,
Italian cookbooks, French cookbooks existed in Mexico. There are two
manuscripts kind of important ones, not like just like a
personal you know, your death, but one of them is
from Fried the Selayo, who's a friar, and the ones

(16:04):
from the convent attributed to the non la Cruz.

Speaker 2 (16:09):
We see recipes for Pierre. There are always all roads
lead to people, all roads. We need to put that
on a shirt. Of course. It's one of the earliest
residents written down.

Speaker 5 (16:24):
More leg colonial suite, sort of the types of candies
that we talked to in our candy episode last season,
and so we start seeing the blending of these you know,
indigenous traditions and ingredients with the.

Speaker 2 (16:36):
Europeans, so all of that.

Speaker 5 (16:38):
The people that were doing the actual cooking in the
convents were indigenous cooks and African slaves. They were bringing
the sasson in Mexican cuisine and they were able to
it was in their blood, it was in and so
even if their voices were recorded in writing, we could
imagine these flavors by you know, reading reading their lives.

Speaker 4 (16:59):
Yeah, but it's a shame because a lot of indigenous
and indigenous books in African slaves would never get the
credit for.

Speaker 2 (17:05):
The cuisines today, do you know what I mean?

Speaker 4 (17:09):
That is like such a shame that we didn't record
those or we couldn't, or they didn't or they stole.

Speaker 5 (17:15):
It, or they stole it, or they burned it or
they destroyed it or you know, you know all of that,
so we actually don't see.

Speaker 2 (17:23):
So it was like so it was over like two
hundred and fifty years before the first cookbook started to
be printed in Mexico. It was like a long time.

Speaker 5 (17:30):
It was a really really long time. Yeah, two hundred
and fifty years. The first one eighteen thirty one Cosineo
Mechicano and also Novismo Cosina, and I love the Novismo one.
It's it's dedicated to Mexican Sinuitas with the best recipes
prepared simply and economically in the Spanish, French, Italian or

(17:51):
English way without losing the Mexican tests on.

Speaker 2 (17:54):
Oh so all of these the recipes are still very European,
but with a touch of mexicanists, with a touch of
because of the ingredients with the tomato, the Chile like
these Italian ones. They don't sound like Italian flute at all.
But now were these were these prop books by women,
even though because it was dedicated to Senorita, but it
wasn't written. We don't know who wrote the recipes.

Speaker 5 (18:16):
So when was the first one, the first recipe, the
first first cookbook written by a.

Speaker 2 (18:21):
Woman is in eighteen ninety six. We sent that Ulo wrote.

Speaker 5 (18:27):
And this book is really interesting because she had a
column in a newspaper Ina in Morala, and she solicited
her readers from across the country to send her their recipes.

Speaker 2 (18:40):
She would put them in the book, and she put
them in the book.

Speaker 5 (18:42):
So for the first time in eighteen ninety six, the
people are a woman in Baja could see what a
woman in media you know you got done was cooked.

Speaker 2 (18:53):
So this was completely.

Speaker 4 (18:55):
Grapul you said often, there's the university of the University
of Texas has a lot or just cookbook collection. University
of Texas, San Antonio, yes, saying oh, whoop, whoop, San Antonio.

Speaker 2 (19:05):
Yeah, whether they have oh the biggest collection of Mexican clooks. Yeah,
in the in the world, and.

Speaker 5 (19:13):
Something outside outside of Mexico City, outside of the Atabase
collection of Mexico City.

Speaker 4 (19:18):
It's utsa and some of the cookbooks date back to
seventeen eighty nine.

Speaker 5 (19:21):
Yeah, they have a manuscript dated to a seventeen eighty
nine and we'll include the link. But a selection of
the collection has been digitized, so it's online and it's
available for anybody to view, to study and to understand, you.

Speaker 2 (19:36):
Know, the the food ways of Mexico.

Speaker 5 (19:39):
I bought a special cuckoo, another special cookbook, okay, that
I wanted to share when we come back, and we
could talk about how book, a cookbook in this case
can be super powerful in a very different way.

Speaker 2 (19:50):
Yeah, so don't go anywhere. We've got more after the break.
There's a cookbook you brought today. I know you want
to talk about it because it's it's like super powerful.

Speaker 5 (20:00):
It's so powerful. It's called ric Memoria. And this is
a super interesting project and that he's cooking as a
form of activism. This is a collaboration between LASS and
this is a group of women. It's a collective made
up of about one hundred and thirty women that have
taken it upon themselves to physically look for the remains

(20:23):
of their husbands, their brothers, their sons, their grandsons, it's
their sisters. And so it's just to give a little
background of that of the actions that led to this
this book. There's actually two books, one from Juanto and
one from Sinaloa. Since nineteen sixty four, over one hundred
and twelve thousand people have disappeared in Mexico due to

(20:43):
drug track efficking or corrupt public officials, military police, anything.

Speaker 4 (20:48):
So they wanted to honor the person's memories exactly these recipes.

Speaker 5 (20:53):
Yeah, honor their memories and this idea that sometimes food
is not about physically nourishing or say, shiating hunger.

Speaker 2 (21:00):
The mere active cooking is what.

Speaker 5 (21:01):
Unites us and the person's memories. And I think you
could say that about any cookbook, but in this particular case,
it's the idea that the person's memories are honored whenever
and wherever the recipes are or prepared, and they're meant
to take action. The books themselves are meant to take
action or learn new recipes, feed, nurture memories, to remember

(21:24):
to resist.

Speaker 4 (21:25):
We talked about this in the Food for Good episode
where there is a shelter in Mexico City that lets
all of these refugees cooked dishes from their home because
it's so nurturing. And you know, this cookbook being like
an act of just remembering these people have disappeared.

Speaker 2 (21:42):
It is an act of like defiance.

Speaker 4 (21:44):
It's meant to take action, and just remembering these people
is going against you know, whatever displaced them or whatever
made them disappear. So many people, you know, have been
displaced because of the Bassetto program. And then I think
thirties or NAFTA or you know, who knows why. But
I think it's beautiful.

Speaker 2 (22:00):
Yeah, but it's literally beautiful, not what is no, No, it's beautiful, gorgeous,
so gorgeous.

Speaker 5 (22:05):
It's a photographer named is Sahara Gomez Luccini. She's been
documenting Les's work and pitched the idea of a cookbook
in twenty eighteen. And she herself is the daughter of
an Argentine journalist who fled the country during the nineteen
seventy six through eighty three military dictatorship.

Speaker 2 (22:23):
She grew up in Spain.

Speaker 5 (22:25):
She lives in Mexico now, but she remembers hearing about
her father talk about Loso Sabaracidos yea and in conversations
with friends who were in exile and to her, it
was very important that they disappeared, not became this sort
of distant mythological figure. But look at this the second
free and it's beautiful photographs. And then the person who

(22:46):
is yeah, she disappeared to thirty years years old. So
Manasanda la her sister, so continued, so powerful, and the
photographs are so incredibly beautiful. It's so beautiful.

Speaker 2 (23:01):
Come and say thank you everybody, thank you for listening.

Speaker 5 (23:03):
Can you say thank you for listening?

Speaker 2 (23:06):
And action? Thank you, thank you for listening, Thank you
for listening everybody.

Speaker 4 (23:13):
Santi decided to join us on the last couple of
minutes of the podcast. I love that you got to
explore your pok episode.

Speaker 2 (23:22):
That means so much.

Speaker 5 (23:23):
Thank you for indulging me.

Speaker 2 (23:27):
I share the passion, I share the fashion. Thank you
so much for listening.

Speaker 4 (23:34):
Hungary for History is a hyphen Media production in partnership
with Iheart's Michael podcast Network.

Speaker 5 (23:40):
For more of your favorite shows, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
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Hosts And Creators

MAITE GOMEZ-REJÓN

MAITE GOMEZ-REJÓN

Eva Longoria

Eva Longoria

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