Diana Kennedy - The Essential Cuisines of Mexico

Copyright 2000 by Diana Kennedy

All rights reserved.
Published in the United States by Clarkson Potter/Publishers, an imprint of the Crown Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc. New York.
www.crownpublishing.com
www.clarksonpotter.com

Originally published in hardcover in the United States by Clarkson Potter/Publishers, an imprint of the Crown Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York, in 2000.

CLARKSON POTTER is a trademark and POTTER with colophon is a registered trademark of Random House, Inc.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Kennedy, Diana.
The essential cuisines of Mexico / by Diana Kennedy.1st ed.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
1. Cookery, Mexican. I. Title.
TX716.M4 K473 2000
641.5972dc21

ISBN: 978-0-307-58772-5
eBook ISBN: 978-0-553-41911-5

DESIGN BY JANE TREUHAFT

v3.1

TO MY BELOVED PAUL,

who was my reason for being in
Mexico in the first place

TO MY MOTHER,

who just expected me to cook everything she did

TO ELIZABETH DAVID,

who inspired me to write about what I was cooking

AND TO CRAIG CLAIBORNE,

who launched me and so many others

In humble dishes,

the Most Holy Mary served

to her beloved son and husband

well-seasoned food.

En pobres trastos, serva

A su Hijo y Esposo amados,

Manjares bien sazonados

La Pursima Mara.

WORDS WRITTEN BY THE CURATE ON THE WALL INSIDE AN EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY COUNTRY CHURCH IN GUANAJUATO

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS My sincere thanks to my editor at Clarkson Potter, Roy Finamore, who recognized the value of putting my first three books together in one volume. He has been a joy to work with. And for Lauren Shakely, who supported him so enthusiastically.

My deep appreciation and thanks to Frances McCullough, my editor and friend of now thirty years, who has guided me through the labyrinth of publishing, calmed my idiosyncrasies (or tried to), and given shape to my manuscripts.

It is impossible to thank adequately all those who have contributed one way or another to my traveling and writing life in Mexico for so many years. I have tried to attribute wherever possible the names of the persons who gave me each recipe and would like them to know how much pleasure their recipes have given to so many people all over the world.

Copyediting is always an unenviable task, but I would like to thank Carole Berglie for her painstaking and sympathetic approach to this hefty manuscript, and designer Jane Treuhaft for fitting it admirably into these pages.

And to Marike Janzen, who patiently and carefully typed the final manuscript.

INTRODUCTIN It would by no means be an exaggeration to say that this booka compilation of my first three books, The Cuisines of Mexico, The Tortilla Book, and Mexican Regional Cookingcame about because of a chance meeting in 1957. After spending three years in Canada, I was traveling home to England via the Caribbean, and I met my future husband, Paul Kennedy, a foreign correspondent for the New York Times, during one of the many revolutions in Haiti. We fell in love and a few months later I found myself disembarking from a Dutch freighter in the port of Veracruz, Mexico. And so a new life and adventure began.

My first vivid impressions of Mexico City, engraved forever in my memory, were of wide, tree-lined avenues, brilliant blue skies, and magnificent snow-capped volcanoes that seemed to be standing guard over the lakes and city beyond. The streets were calm and orderly, especially during the hours of the afternoon siesta, but the neighborhood marketplaces dotted throughout the city were a hive of activity, full of exotic chiles, herbs, and fruits of vibrant colors and aromas. I was instantly captivated. I began exploring, talking about food to anyone who would answer my endless questions, and, of course, cooking and trying all those strange, exciting new tastes and textures.

A few years later Craig Claiborne, then Food Editor of the New York Times, and his colleague Pierre Franey came to Mexico to research an article about restaurants there. Over drinks I offered to give Craig a Mexican cookbook. No, he said, Ill wait until the day you write one. That came somewhat as a joltenough to leave a subconscious, nagging idea.

Several years later, after Pauls untimely death from cancer, it was Craig again who jolted me into giving my first classes in Mexican cooking in my New York apartment. It was the beginning of a golden era of learning about different cuisines, with their exotic ingredients, and how to prepare them. For that we were, and still are, indebted to Craig, for bringing a new sophistication to food journalism, and to the infectious enthusiasm of Julia Child, convincing us on television that every housewife could produce, without tears, a wonderful French meal.

Craig announced the impending classes in the Times. I was inundated with inquiries and soon had the six stools in my small Upper West Side kitchen occupied for a series of four classes.

One of those callers was to become my editor, Frances McCullough. Although at the time she was the poetry editor at Harper & Row, Fran was also an expatriate Californian desperate for some good Mexican food; she wanted to know if I would write a Mexican cookbook for Harper.

I was very nervous. I warned Fran that I couldnt write. She persisted, so I sent in some draftslater she told me she privately agreed about the writing but wisely didnt tell me at the time. I went off to Mexico again for my usual research trip, came back, read what I had written, tore it up, and started again. I had a call from Fran at midnight. She had just finished reading the new material and couldnt wait to talk to me. What happened over the summeryouve taught yourself how to write. That was in 1969.

And so my first book, The Cuisines of Mexico, was born, a culmination of invisible forces propelling me along an uncharted course of food writingand there was nothing I could do about it.

While Cuisines was in the making, very few people (apart from Fran) knew what I was talking about, perhaps only those who had traveled and eaten well in Mexico. It was the era of the combination plate, and we soon realized that just within Harper itself there was an awful lot of convincing to do about the very existence of the authentic regional cuisines of Mexico. We then and there decided to feed all the people in charge of various stages of the books production the real thing with, of course, lots of well-made margaritas.

We had to convince everyone: the art department to give us four-color photographs instead of the cute little drawings they had suggested, the sales force to make the right pitch, the designer to catch the spirit, the book clubs to get excited, not forgetting the booksellers all across America. I cooked and cooked; the Harper staff got into the swing of things and helped me haul thirty huge cazuelas of food to Washington, D.C., in a heatwave for the annual booksellers convention; our guests were astounded, and happy. Finally everyone understood what we were talking about and gave us carte blanche.