• Mexican Cookbook Devoted to American Homes

• La cocina económica (Inexpensive Cooking)

Mexican Cookbook Devoted to American Homes
By: Josefina Velázquez de León
First Edition: 1947
Editions: 8 (Last, 1971)
Paperback, Bilingual (English-Spanish)
363 Pages
 
Every month, we feature a different book written by Josefina.
This month we’ve selected Mexican Cookbook devoted to American Homes, because it is a bilingual title that shows Josefina’s ongoing commitment to teaching and the spreading of Mexican culture and traditions. It also emphasizes her entrepreneurial skills in reaching out to a foreign market.“It is a great honour to dedicate the present book,” Josefina writes in its introduction (original spelling has been respected) “to the Distinguished Feminine Society of this Continent and specially the North American Women, in their own language, that has demostrated interest and pleasure in learning the ‘Authentic Mexican Cookery’ by the continuons petitions of my Academy pupils, from the United States.”

First published in 1947, the book underwent, to the best of our knowledge, eight editions, the last in 1971. The 1947 edition credits Concepción Silva Garcia as the translator, and Josefina’s sister Guadalupe was responsible for the drawings, including, it seems, the delightful cover that shows a pretty Mexican brunette offering food from a traditional cazuela surrounded by flags: colonial buildings rising over the Mexican flag, while skyscrapers are elevated over the American pennant. This is not the only bilingual title written by Josefina. She also published a title called “International Cook Book”, and “Cake Decoration Method.” In the back pages of these books she also offered a bilingual five-class program at her culinary school in Mexico City, which she labeled as a “Modern Cooking School.”

The 1947 edition of Mexican Cookbook Devoted to American Homes, is divided into four sections. The first is a lengthy explanation of Mexican food including an installment called “How to Cook the Mexican Way in the United States.” The two following sections portray an array of recipes (for a recipe from this book click here), from well-known Mexican dishes like tamales and moles that remain unchanged to this day, to some forgotten delicacies like Caguama (sea turtle) Soup, a “favorite dish among Baja Californians.” The last section of the book offers a look at one of Josefina’s most ambitious projects: to gather, research, and publish recipes from all the different Mexican regions. This task began in the 1940s when she embarked on a series of trips around the country. In 1946, a year before Mexican Cookbook Devoted to American Homes, she published Platillos regionales de la República Mexicana (Regional Dishes of the Mexican Republic), a landmark work that became the first book to collect the country’s enormously diverse cuisine in a single volume. That makes Mexican Cookbook Devoted to American Homes the first book published in English to collect, in a single volume, a selection of these regional dishes. © 2004 Mauricio Velázquez de León

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La cocina económica (Inexpensive Cooking)
by: Josefina Velázquez de León
First Edition: Around 1940s
Number of editions: 6 (at least)
Paperback, 332 pages
 
A central theme of Josefina’s publishing was to underline the relationship between good eating and a healthy family economy. Based on her own culinary school motto that advised that “saber cocinar es base de la economía, (knowing how to cook is the basis for economy), Josefina published a series of books dedicated to offering practical advice on the wise use of money and ingredients in the kitchen. Some examples are titles such as Cómo cocinar en tiempos de carestía (How to Cook in Hard Times), Cómo aprovechar los sobrantes de la comida (How to Use Leftovers), Pasteles económicos (Inexpensive Pastry), La cocina como negocio (The Kitchen as a business), 12 industrias en el hogar (12 Business at Home) and La cocina económica (Inexpensive Cooking).

In the sixth edition of La cocina económica (Inexpensive Cooking), originally published in the 1940s, Josefina writes in the introduction that her goal is to offer easy-to-do recipes with easy-to-find ingredients. She also makes clear that, although she has done her best to keep a delicate and beautiful presentation of the dishes, the “economic situation was always kept in mind.”

The book, whose cover shows a photograph of Josefina herself in front of an oven and in the company of a cat, is divided into three sections. First, Josefina presents a lengthy introduction to the cooking world, explaining the necessary kitchen appliances and furniture, the basic elements of a pantry, and different table settings. The second section offers measurement and unit conversion tables, the nutritional content of different foods, and a long list of practical advice. Finally, in the third section, Josefina offers around 300 recipes. These recipes cover a wide array of subjects, from traditional soups, meat dishes, sauces, and desserts, to specialized sections devoted to traditional Mexican fare, vigil dishes, food for the sick, and recommended pastry to eat with tea.

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