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The University of Texas at San Antonio is home to the largest and most comprehensive Mexican Cookbook Collection in the nation.
The UTSA Libraries Special Collections welcomes Mexican chef and TV host Pati Jinich for its annual fundraising dinner series for the collection, Ven a Comer, with this year's theme focusing on the diverse flavors of the Mexican borderlands.
TPR's Marian Navarro spoke with Jinich and with UT San Antonio's Associate Provost for Special Collections Amy Rushing ahead of the events.
Rushing explains how the Mexican Cookbook Collection came to be.
This conversation has been edited for clarity and length.
RUSHING: So, the collection was originally ... well, about 500 titles were donated by a librarian, a public librarian, named Laurie Gruenbeck in, I think, it was 2010. She traveled all over Mexico. She loved food, so she would pick up cookbooks during her travels. When she retired, she decided that she really wanted this collection to be accessible to students and the public, and so, she chose UTSA Special Collections as the home for her collection. Over the years, we really saw the value in the collection in terms of teaching and inspiration for the community, for the UTSA community, and we started growing the collection. It has turned out to be one of our most well- known collections, and we're really honored to be the stewards of that collection.
NAVARRO: What kind of recipes, as an example, come to mind when you think of the cookbook collection? What is featured that people could expect to see if they looked through the collection?
RUSHING: Well, the oldest cookbook we have is from 1789 and it's a handwritten recipe book. From there, it goes all the way up to the present. And I would say that we're very strong in regional cooking. We have almost all of the 19th century cookbooks that were published in Mexico. The first cookbooks published in Mexico from 1831. You name it, it's in there.
NAVARRO: Pati, have you gotten the chance to look through some of the collection, and if so, what are your thoughts?
JINICH: Yes, and it's absolutely incredible, Marian. The team came here to Washington, D.C. and had an exhibit at the Mexican Cultural Institute with just some of the volumes that they had. It gave me goosebumps, really, to be able to touch those books, to open those pages. It's incredible to look at recipes that were written, you know, so many hundreds of years ago — the way they were written, and the things that were said. You know, today we have the precise measures of one teaspoon, one tablespoon, and then it was like, you grab a bunch of or a bucket of or a pinch off — eyeball this, or eyeball that, and it's really incredible.
For me, something that's an amazing challenge is to adapt those recipes to today, because you want to eat those foods and have a taste of the past. That just gives you different dimension in which to appreciate and understand history with your full senses. It's just pretty incredible. So, I think that … I'm hoping that the collection continues to grow and that they can put all of this incredible content at the fingertips of anybody who wants to access and make those, you know, sweet and sour meatballs with pine nuts and olives from 150 years ago. So, I think it's just … it's incredible.
NAVARRO: UTSA Special Collections has an annual Ven a Comer fundraiser that showcases this Mexican cookbook collection. There are two events that are going on this week, Pati, that you're doing in collaboration with the collection. That's on Friday for the Ven a Brindar event, and then on Saturday with the Ven a Comer dinner.
Can you tell me a little bit about what those events are and just describe them a little bit to me and what you'll be doing?
JINICH: Yes, of course. So, I'm coming to San Antonio for the full weekend. On Friday, we are hosting an event called Ven a Brindar where we're going to have some special cocktails and special invites, and it's going to be just interactive, having a conversation, spending time with each other. And then Saturday is the big Ven a Comer event, where we have a menu that's, of course, inspired in the collection, and it focuses on the foods from la frontera, the U.S.-Mexico borderlands food.
I'm very excited about this because, talk about a region that has been narrowly defined and misunderstood and stigmatized and has gifted the world with such amazing treasures. If you think about foods that have come from la frontera, of course, you have the Caesar salad from Tijuana that you can find anywhere in the world. You have the nachos that came from Piedras Negras. You have the burritos from Ciudad Juárez. Food is just, a window to show the incredible treasures that have come from the U.S.-Mexico borderlands, even from before there was the political line that is drawn today on the map.
The recipes are super delicious, family friendly, packed full of flavor, and I think it's going to be full of surprises for the people that come. I don't know how much I want to share of the menu right now, because we want it to be a little bit of a surprise, but it's the ingredients that we use, the techniques that we use. I think the menu really pays tribute and honors the generations that have come before in la frontera. And it also takes a peek — a peek at the future, at the continuous evolution, innovation, creativity of the people that are in la frontera, which is really like a third culture: not from here, not from there, from everywhere, in reaching the entire world at the same time.
NAVARRO: Amy, anything to add?
RUSHING: I just want to mention that the whole impetus for Ven a Comer was … it's a fundraiser. That's what it is. It's a crucial source of funding for us. We use that money for, you know, any proceeds, we use that for purchasing new books and conservation, digitization.
When we started Ven a Comer, I think our collection was around 1,300 books, and now we're at almost 3,000 books. So, it really does make a difference. It's an amazing partnership between the libraries and the Consulate of Mexico and San Antonio, The Pearl, and in the early days it was Hotel Emma. So, it takes a village. But it's been so amazing to see the collection come to life through an event like this.
