A Tortilla Is Like Life

An innovative portrait of a small Colorado town based on a decade’s worth of food-centered life histories from nineteen of its female residents. Located in the southern San Luis Valley of Colorado, the remote and relatively unknown town of Antonito is home to an overwhelmingly Hispanic population struggling not only to exist in an economically depressed and politically marginalized area, but also to preserve their culture and their lifeways. Between 1996 and 2006, anthropologist Carole Counihan collected food-centered life histories from nineteen Mexicanas―Hispanic American women―who had long-standing roots in the Upper Rio Grande region. The interviews in this groundbreaking study focused on southern Colorado Hispanic foodways―beliefs and behaviors surrounding food production, distribution, preparation, and consumption. In this book, Counihan features extensive excerpts from these interviews to give voice to the women of Antonito and highlight their perspectives. Three lines of inquiry are framed: feminist ethnography, Latino cultural citizenship, and Chicano environmentalism. Counihan documents how Antonito’s Mexicanas establish a sense of place and belonging through their knowledge of land and water and use this knowledge to sustain their families and communities. Women play an important role by gardening, canning, and drying vegetables; earning money to buy food; cooking; and feeding family, friends, and neighbors on ordinary and festive occasions. They use food to solder or break relationships and to express contrasting feelings of harmony and generosity, or enmity and envy. The interviews in this book reveal that these Mexicanas are resourceful providers whose food work contributes to cultural survival. “An important contribution to Mexican American culture.” ―Oral History Review “Counihan’s book is well written and will appeal to a wide spectrum of readers . . . I would recommend this book to those whose interests lie in foodways, gender studies, ethnography and folklore. A Tortilla is Like Life would be a good addition to any reading list, and a beneficial resource for those who desire to understand the complex associations of gender, food, culture and ethnicity.” —Digest: A Journal of Foodways and Culture

In this lively picture book, children discover a world of shapes all around them: rectangles are ice-cream carts and stone metates, triangles are slices of watermelon and quesadillas. Many of the featured objects are Latino in origin, and all are universal in appeal. With rich, boisterous illustrations, a fun-to-read rhyming text, and an informative glossary, this playful concept book will reinforce the shapes found in every child's day! Plus, this is the fixed format version, which will look almost identical to the print version. Additionally for devices that support audio, this ebook includes a read-along setting.

Prevent or reverse taco deficiency. Get that fresh taco-y feeling with over 75 seriously tasty vegan recipes. Tired of the same old cleanse? Instead of feeling rejuvenated are you feeling depleted, anxious, and cranky? (Not to mention . . . hungry?) A group of vegan taco scientists in Austin, Texas, know just how you feel, and now reveal their one-of-a-kind cleansing journey that anybody can follow and stick to—the Taco Cleanse. While the typical cleanse works by depriving you of your favorite foods, the plant-based Taco Cleanse rewards your body with what it naturally craves: tortillas, refried beans, guacamole! Begin with a breakfast taco, the most important taco of the day. Even if you do nothing else, your mood will brighten in just 24 hours. Keep eating tacos and within a week your outlook will be noticeably improved. After 30 days, cleansers report lasting benefits—and you will, too! The Taco Cleanse shows you: How to make everything from the tortilla—flour, corn, and waffle (!)—to the thirst-quenching “Supplements” (margaritas and other beverages) that best complement your tacos What to put in the tortilla— beer-battered portobellos, mac and cheese, even tater tots How to remake popular staples like picadillo, tacos al pastor, carne guisada, and fish tacos using plants instead of, well, animals. The Taco Cleanse is cheap, easy, and delicious. Its recipes are authentically Austin, and are sometimes even inspired by Mexico, where the taco was first created. Everything tastes better folded (exactly once) into a tortilla. Just eat one or more tacos at every meal, adding margaritas as necessary. It’s that simple.

When twelve-year-old Izzy discovers a beat-up baseball marked with the words "Because magic" while unpacking in yet another new apartment, she is determined to figure out what it means. What secrets does this old ball have to tell? Her mom certainly isn't sharing anyespecially when it comes to Izzy's father, who died before Izzy was born. But when she spends the summer in her Nana's remote New Mexico village, Izzy discovers long-buried secrets that come alive in an enchanted landscape of watermelon mountains, whispering winds, and tortilla suns. Infused with the flavor of the southwest and sprinkled with just a pinch of magic, this heartfelt middle grade debut is as rich and satisfying as Nana's homemade enchiladas.

In this entertaining and informative account Paula E. Morton surveys the history of the tortilla from its roots in ancient Mesoamerica to the cross-cultural global tortilla.

The innovative chef and culinary trend-setter named one of Time’s 100 most influential people in the world shares 150 recipes for her vibrant, simple, and sophisticated contemporary Mexican cooking. IACP AWARD FINALIST • ART OF EATING PRIZE LONGLIST • NAMED ONE OF THE BEST COOKBOOKS OF THE SEASON BY The New York Times • Bon Appétit • San Francisco Chronicle • Chicago Tribune Inspired by the flavors, ingredients, and flair of culinary and cultural hotspot Mexico City, Gabriela Cámara's style of fresh-first, vegetable-forward, legume-loving, and seafood-centric Mexican cooking is a siren call to home cooks who crave authentic, on-trend recipes they can make with confidence and regularity. With 150 recipes for Basicos (basics), Desayunos (breakfasts), Primeros (starters), Platos Fuertos (mains), and Postres (sweets), Mexican food-lovers will find all the dishes they want to cook—from Chilaquiles Verdes to Chiles Rellenos and Flan de Cajeta—and will discover many sure-to-be favorites, such as her signature tuna tostadas. More than 150 arresting images capture the rich culture that infuses Cámara's food and a dozen essays detail the principles that distinguish her cooking, from why non-GMO corn matters to how everything can be a taco. With celebrated restaurants in Mexico City and San Francisco, Cámara is the most internationally recognized figure in Mexican cuisine, and her innovative, simple Mexican food is exactly what home cooks want to cook.

With a vast selection of foods and thousands of recipes to choose from, how do home cooks in America decide what to cook – and what does their cooking mean to them? Answering this question, Making Dinner is an empirical study of home cooking in the United States. Drawing on a combination of research methods, which includes in-depth interviews with over 50 cooks and cooking journals documenting over 300 home-cooked dinners, Roblyn Rawlins and David Livert explore how American home cooks think and feel about themselves, food, and cooking. Their findings reveal distinct types of cook-the family-first cook, the traditional cook, and the keen cook -and demonstrate how personal identities, family relationships, ideologies of gender and parenthood, and structural constraints all influence what ends up on the plate. Rawlins and Livert reveal research that fills the data gap on practices of home cooking in everyday life. This is an important contribution to fields such as food studies, health and nutrition, sociology, social psychology, anthropology, gender studies, and American studies.

This volume offers a comprehensive guide to methods used in the sociocultural, linguistic and historical research of food use. This volume is unique in offering food-related research methods from multiple academic disciplines, and includes methods that bridge disciplines to provide a thorough review of best practices. In each chapter, a case study from the author's own work is to illustrate why the methods were adopted in that particular case along with abundant additional resources to further develop and explore the methods.