Mexico's Early Cookbooks With Maite Gomez-Rejon

Moorpark near Katherine, Los Angeles CA

15 March, 2021

Description

You are invited to a free event presented on Zoom by the Sherman Oaks Friends of the Library   Monday, March 15 at 6:15 p.m. Pacific   The cuisine of Mexico is based on ingredients used for centuries before the Spanish Conquest and incorporates flavors and foods from Europe, the Middle East and elsewhere. Mexican cuisine is recorded in the diaries of early Spaniards, colonial kitchen manuscripts and cookbooks published after Independence in 1821 through the 1910-1920 Revolution. Reading between the lines of the recipes in these sources, one sees the shifting attitudes toward food, from a status marker and divider of classes to a tool for unifying the country and creating a unique national identity.   Maite Gomez-Réjon is a Los Angeles-based writer, educator, cook and, according to Oxford University Press, an independent scholar on the history of cookbooks and food writing in Mexico. To register:   A native of South Texas, Ms. Gomez-Réjon earned a BFA from the University of Texas in Austin, MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and Grande Diplome from the French Culinary Institute in New York City. She went on to work in restaurant kitchens in France and Mexico before combining her passions for history, art and food in 2007 by founding ArtBites. She has worked for the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Museum of Modern Art, and The Getty, taught at UCLA Extension, and offered online programs for The Huntington Library, Museum and Gardens. Additionally, Ms. Gomez-Réjon has been a contributor to HuffPost, featured in Food & Wine magazine, and guest on NBC’s TODAY and NPR’s Splendid Table.   Links to some of her recipes will be available in the Chat feature during this live, free event on Zoom.