In 1991 Ruth Reichl, then a Los Angeles Times food writer, observed that much of the style now identified with California cuisine, and with nouvelle cuisine du Mexique, was practiced by Encarnación Pinedo a century earlier. A landmark of American cuisine first published in 1898 as El cocinero español (The Spanish Cook), Encarnación's Kitchen is the first cookbook written by a Hispanic in the United States, as well as the first recording of Californio food—Mexican cuisine prepared by the Spanish-speaking peoples born in California. Pinedo's cookbook offers a fascinating look into the kitchens of a long-ago culture that continues to exert its influence today.

Of some three hundred of Pinedo's recipes included here—a mixture of Basque, Spanish, and Mexican—many are variations on traditional dishes, such as chilaquiles, chiles rellenos, and salsa (for which the cook provides fifteen versions). Whether describing how to prepare cod or ham and eggs (a typical Anglo dish labeled "huevos hipócritas"), Pinedo was imparting invaluable lessons in culinary history and Latino culture along with her piquant directions. In addition to his lively, clear translation, Dan Strehl offers a remarkable view of Pinedo's family history and of the material and literary culture of early California cooking. Prize-winning journalist Victor Valle puts Pinedo's work into the context of Hispanic women's testimonios of the nineteenth century, explaining how the book is a deliberate act of cultural transmission from a traditionally voiceless group.

About the Author

Dan Strehl, Manager of the Frances Howard Goldwyn Hollywood Regional Branch of the Los Angeles Public Library, is the author of The Spanish Cook (1992) and One Hundred Books on California Food and Wine (1990). Victor Valle is Director of the American Communities Program at Cal State
Univerisity Los Angeles, Professor of Ethnic Studies at California Polytechnic
State University, coauthor of Recipe of Memory (1995), and a member of a Los Angeles Times team that won a Pulitzer Prize for reporting on the Chicano community in Los Angeles.

Acknowledgments
A Curse of Tea and Potatoes: The Life and Recipes of Encarnación Pinedo
In Encarnación’s Kitchen
El cocinero español—The Spanish Cook
A Note on the Text
Dedication
Introduction: The Art of Cooking

Recetas—Recipes
Sopas, Pan, Huevos—Soups, Breads, Eggs
Pescado—Fish
Aves—Poultry
Carne—Meat
Verduras y Maíz—Vegetable and Corn Dishes
Rellenos—Stuffings
Salsas—Sauces
Dulces—Desserts and Sweets

Ingredients and Procedures
Bibliography
Index

Reviews

“A historic trove of 300 Mexican recipes from 19th-century California. . . . Pinedo's work offers a look into kitchens of days gone by, with a flavor whose influence is still apparent today.”
— Associated Press

“A landmark for anyone interested in learning about and preparing Mexican food. . . .Strehl’s sharp 300-recipe version . . .will ensure new generations of experts. There are more than 15 variations of salsa alone. Readers will recognize the roots of lots of additional still-popular traditional dishes, such as enchiladas and chiles rellenos, as well as many dishes they most likely have never prepared or tasted before. Recipes are presented just as Pinedo did, written out in paragraph form without separating ingredients and directions and without specifying exact amounts of ingredients or yields. Befitting most of history’s classic, well-loved cuisines, recipes are simple, yet memorably flavorful.”
— Copley News Service

“Deserves inclusion in both academic and large public library culinary history collections.”
— Library Journal

“The first cookbook written by a Hispanic in the United States, it succeeds on two levels. First, it presents many sophisticated and mouthwatering recipes. . . .While the measurements are not as precise as those found in today’s cookbooks, the recipes seem both workable and intriguing. Second, the book allows a glimpse at a proud woman whose culture was trampled by Anglo settlers. Readers will sense the place and the role of a woman—and an unmarried one at that—in a 19th-century kitchen, but, more important, they should gain a clear picture of how the Mexican populace in California clung fast to its heritage.”
— Library Journal

“The menu is sophisticated and unusual -- fish stuffed with cinnamon-spiced ground nuts, fresh fava beans cooked with lettuce and ham, corn pudding and, for dessert, tuberose ice cream. The latest at a trendy fusion cafe? No -- it's Old California cuisine, as revealed in an intriguing historic cookbook, recently republished by University of California Press. . . . More than a collection of recipes, the book gives a fascinating glimpse into the lifestyle of a vanished segment of California society.”
— Los Angeles Times

“Though this bible of 19th-century California cuisine is now more than a century old, a new and seamless translation by Strehl (The Spanish Cook) proves that common sense culinary advice is timeless. . . .The book, with its Buñuelos, o Suspiros de Monjas (Puffy Fritters, or Nuns’ Sighs), serves as a window on another time, as a cultural document as much as a culinary one. And the simplicity with which these dishes can be recreated more than makes up for a deep-fried dependence on lard. Victor Valle (Recipe of Memory) provides an enlightening introductory essay that briefly chronicles the life and times of the remarkable woman who shaped present day Cal-Mex cookery.”
— Publishers Weekly

"It's a rare cookbook that is as pleasurable to think about as it is to cook from. But that's what Dan Strehl has accomplished with his elegant translation of Encarnación’s Kitchen, a book that provides a fascinating look at the life and cooking of the wealthy Californios in the final days of the rich Rancho culture of California."—Russ Parsons, author of How to Read a French Fry

"At long last! It is with enormous pleasure that I greet Dan Strehl’s authoritative English translation, Encarnación’s Kitchen. I should like to have had the original Spanish edition as well, but I dream."—Karen Hess, author of The Carolina Rice Kitchen

"Encarnación’s Kitchen is far more than a historical curiosity, or a mere kitchen fragment that sketches silhouettes of ingredients and techniques. The recipes of Encarnación Pinedo’s kitchen, brought alive and set in context by Dan Strehl (and Victor Valle’s lucid introduction), offer rich examples of how California’s Mexican culinary culture developed as it bumped into—and cross-pollinated with—young, multifarious America. These dishes lay bare the often overlooked reality that food can be more than a reflection of culture. Food, as Encarnación understood, can be a seductively delicious catalyst for social understanding, change, even rebellious protest."—Rick Bayless, author of Mexico One Plate at a Time

About the Book

About the Author

Table of Contents

Reviews