Tag Archives: women

2023, March 2023

Chefs Conquer – Cooks Nourish

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By Kary Vannice

March is traditionally “The Women’s Issue” here at The Eye. And this year, the staff decided to focus the majority of our articles on Mexican women in the culinary industry. However, one unarguable fact comes up in every “Top Mexican Chef” Google search – the majority of chefs listed are men. How can this be in a country where women so clearly dominate the household kitchen? Why don’t more women rise up to the ranks of Top Chef in Mexico or even on the global stage?

María Canabal, a food journalist and founder of Parabere Forum, dedicated to promoting the work of women in restaurant kitchens around the world, put the numbers in perspective. Canabel points out that “93% of the people who cook at home are women. 48% of the graduates of culinary schools are women. 39% of the cooks in restaurants are women, but only 18% of the women in the industry are head chefs.”

In 2018, Kantar Worldpanel Mexico, a consumer behavior research center, reported that men do the majority of the cooking in only 8% of Mexican households, and yet 15 of the “Top 20 Chefs of Mexico” are men. Consistently, ranking after ranking, 80% of the most recognized and acclaimed Mexican chefs are male.

As María Canabal puts it, “Talent has no gender. Either you have it, or you don’t.” So why the gender gap in handing out accolades? Surely, with nearly 50% of culinary school graduates being female, there has to be more than 20% of female chefs with talent equal to that of male chefs. If culinary distinction is based on talent alone, the numbers just don’t add up.

Are there differences between the dishes prepared by a man and those by a woman? Is it even about the food? Perhaps it’s more about the industry of culinary arts and its history?

Research shows it’s actually a bit of all of the above.

Decades ago, many culinary schools admitted disproportionately fewer women than men, some admitting only 10% female students. Many of today’s Top Chefs are older males, so it could be said that this is a contributing factor. However, not all of the top recognized chefs are classically trained. Another major factor in becoming an acclaimed chef is one must have a place to showcase their talent, in other words, a restaurant. However, when female chefs approach investors for a startup restaurant, they are often turned away, whereas male chefs often get the backing they seek based on the belief that men are better in business than women.

Not only does one need a well-backed restaurant, chefs who want to be recognized also need to be active in mainstream and online social media. Rising culinary stars must become comfortable in the limelight, spending time in front of a camera and giving interviews for print and television, all of which take time. Female chefs with families often have less time to dedicate to PR than single male chefs do. And the industry takes note of chefs the media is “buzzing” about. When asked about the role media plays in “making it” in the industry, one chef put it this way, “It’s hard to know which comes first – great food that attracts media attention, or great PR that attracts media attention pushing you to be a better chef.”

In today’s world, to be considered for high-profile awards or high-profile media coverage in the culinary world, you have to be a chef capable of presenting a certain kind of narrative. So, it could be said that both history and the industry have stacked the decks against female chefs, but what about the question of whether there are differences between the dishes that a man prepares and those of a woman?

From a purely culinary perspective, the answer is “no.” However, look deeper into the motivation, inspiration, and intent behind the dishes prepared and the answer may be “yes.” Men, it could be said, picked up the ladle for a very different reason than did women. They aspired not to nourish, but to create and conquer.

French chef Hèlène Darroze said of the difference between men and women chefs, “They want to teach their techniques, show something new, be the first. We cook to generate an experience, to care, and this is a very different approach.”

Traditionally, in the world of haute cuisine, more daring and avant garde cooking is more rewarded and awarded than traditional methods of cooking. “Women don’t usually do extreme cooking because they don’t seek to assert themselves through the act of cooking. For them food is nutrition long before stupor, supremacy, jealousy or envy,” Italian chef Licia Granello says of female chefs.

Could this be the ultimate differentiating factor? Men simply approach the job differently, with a different aim in mind and, thus, seek recognition more than women because they are driven by a different ambition?

French chef Olivier Roellinger certainly agrees. He is famously quoted as saying, “All kitchens in the world are feminine, they were created by grandmothers and mothers. But Spanish cuisine only began to be talked about when men began to cook.” Regardless of the reason, the fact remains that women are disproportionately under represented in the upper echelons of culinary culture. Whether it’s industry, history, or ego, women have a long way to go before they gain equality in the world’s top kitchens.

The online news outlet Chefs 4 Estaciones published a beautifully written article on this topic in Spanish noting that forty years ago, our books were the cookbooks of our grandmothers, mothers, great-aunts, and aunts. Without women in gastronomy, there would be no roots, no inheritance, no tradition in the kitchen. Definitely, much of what culinary cooks know today is thanks to women. They deserve our thanks and our tribute. And an equal place in the world of the professional restaurant.

2023, March 2023

Five Women: Mexico City’s Star Chefs

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By Carole Reedy

The streets of Mexico City overflow not just with people and cars but also with culture, art, science, and nature. There seem to be no limits. Growth is a near-constant, but the citizenry knows how to adapt to the colorful chaos, making this one of the most beloved cites in the world.

In this megalopolis, the choices for food, drink, restaurants, markets, street snacks, taco stands, and cafes, as well as their diversity of style, are staggering. And amidst this richness, numerous women chefs have made their mark, creating cuisines and venues worthy of their big-city status.

The food scene here supports so many women who shine brightly that it’s impossible to name them all. The choices here are subjective, based purely on my experiences and those of my visitors.

One positive result of the Covid pandemic is the presence of more street dining in our cities. The Mexican government has allowed restaurants to build fashionable wooden structures on streets, sidewalks, curbs, and parking areas, making dining a more social experience, and certainly a better ventilated one. Add the near-perfect climate of Mexico City and you can dine al fresco most days and evenings.

Now, let’s take a closer look at some of our top women chefs:

ELENA REYGADAS is the award-winning chef (Veuve Clicquot named her the Best Latin American Female Chef in 2014) at Rosetta, a delectable eatery on Colima street in the heart of trendy Roma Norte. New and repeat customers appreciate not only the high quality of the food and Mexican ingredients, but also her innovative presentation, which sidesteps unnecessary cleverness. This is the first stop for many of my visitors, a favorite dish being the sea bass, though any selection is delicately prepared with just the perfect balance of flavors.

Rosetta is open Monday-Saturday, 1 to 5:30 pm and 6:30 to 11:15pm. Reservations strongly suggested, especially in the evening hours.

Just across the street is Reygadas’ casual Panadería Rosetta, known for its exceptional bread and pastries, as well as sandwiches. The traditional pan de muerto and rosca de reyes are to die for, although only offered during their respective Mexican holiday celebrations. You can eat on site or take out. The outdoor area is perfect for people watching.
Panadería Rosetta is open Monday-Saturday 7 am to 8 pm, Sunday 7:30 am to 6 pm.

Ten years after the she opened Rosetta in 2010, Reygadas opened yet another successful eatery in neighboring Condesa, this time with a new European /Mexican/ Mediterranean concept. Lardo is a bit more casual than Rosetta, with a bar encircling the room, but the food still has the finest of flavors. Lardo’s excellent breakfast is a good choice.

An interesting note about Reygadas for readers of The Eye’s regular book review column: she studied English literature at UNAM, where she wrote her thesis on Virgina Woolf’s experimental novel The Waves.

MÓNICA PATIÑO is a recognizable name among all foodies in the city. She’s won numerous awards and, like Reygadas, two of her most famous and best restaurants are the formal Casa Virginia in Roma Norte and a more casual place next door, Delirio.

Casa Virginia has a fine dining atmosphere, with prices to reflect it. With an ample variety of choices, the French cuisine is delicately prepared and deliciously presented. From figs and Gorgonzola cheese to clams, fish, short ribs, and the classic French onion soup, the food encourages repeat visits.

Casa Virginia is open 1:30 to 11 pm Tuesday-Saturday, and only until 6 pm Sundays. Closed Mondays.

Delirio is a delicatessen with a few outdoor tables on busy Calle Alvaro Obregon (indoor seating is also available). Patiño also sells many of her delicacies at this location, both grocery items and freshly prepared foods. Chilaquiles are a particular favorite, as are the juices. I often stop in just for takeout.

Delirio is open Monday-Saturday 8 am to 10 pm, Sunday 9 am to 7pm.

Early in her life Patiño wanted to learn English and French and moved to Europe to do just that. She studied cooking in France, with an emphasis on pastries, ice creams, and pates.

MARTHA ORTIZ. Let’s travel from Condesa and Roma to Polanco, another upscale neighborhood, close to Chapultepec Park. Here Martha Ortiz Chapa runs her famous restaurant Dulce Patria (Sweet Homeland).

When asked what she recommends to tourists who come to her restaurant looking for Mexican flavors, Ortiz replies:

“Everything we have on the menu. Our menu is small but articulates Mexican stories through marinades, moles, corn and beans. I feel proud of everything we have from a nationalist guacamole to María goes to the flower shop, the place’s flagship dessert, and whatever you experience. What they ask for the most is the duck with mole and the coconut flan with pineapple a la vainilla for dessert.”

CARMEN RAMÍREZ DEGOLLADO created El Bajio restaurant with her husband in 1972, and has carried on the tradition since his death in 1988, expanding from one to 19 locations in the city.

This is one of my favorite places to entertain guests, and I usually do so in the venue at 222 Reforma. The restaurant is colorfully decorated in the purest Mexican style, and the food reflects the vast traditions of Mexico.

My favorite and probably the most popular dish is the carnitas, delicate pieces of pork butt served on fresh hot tortillas. You can ask for it maciza, which means with less fat, just solid meat. Mexican breakfasts, such as huevos rancheros, are also a treat. Please don’t miss the hot chocolate!

GABRIELA CÁMERA. In 1988, this restaurant owner and author opened a seafood restaurant called Contramar that has generated buzz on the streets of Roma Norte ever since. This is one of the most popular restaurants in the city. Try the soft-shell crabs or spicy fish tacos in the airy dining room and plant-filled patio.

Cámera published My Mexico City Kitchen in 2019, the same year she and her staff were the subject of the Netflix documentary A Tale of Two Kitchens and Time Magazine listed her as one of its most influential people.

This modest list of women-led restaurants represents just the tip of the iceberg, but a good place to start your Mexico City food frenzy.

2023, March 2023

Tortillas, Women and Circles

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By Brooke O’Connor

It’s impossible to think about Mexican food without immediately thinking about tortillas, whether made with flour or variously colored corn. A legend says tortillas were invented by a humble peasant to feed a hungry king. We have records of corn tortillas being made as far back as 10,000 BCE. Why have they been a staple of the Americas and how have women making tortillas become such an important part of society?

First, let’s look at the making of tortillas. Traditionally, dried corn is cooked in lime water. Not limes from trees, but an alkaline bath made with wood ash and/or white lime powder from the earth. This process creates a chemical reaction releasing the bioavailability of B vitamins, particularly vitamin B3, which is not widely present in traditional vegetable-based diets. Boiling in this water also increases the mineral uptake such as calcium, iron, copper, and zinc by hundreds of percentage points. After the corn is boiled for at least 90 minutes, the skins can be slipped off and the corn can be ground into masa and used for tortillas, or other bases for foods like tamales or sopes.

This process is called nixtamalization, coming from the Aztec language Nahuatal word nextli “lime ashes” and tamalli “unformed/cooked corn dough.”

We don’t know how the process was discovered, but we think it goes something like this. People in the Americas didn’t have metal cooking vessels in 10,000 BCE, and the traditional pottery was not strong enough to cook directly on hot coals or fire. The earthenware pots were elevated above the fire, then hot stones were put into the pot (with the food) to increase the temperature and cook food thoroughly. Limestone is an easily attained and abundant resource in the Americas, so it the heated rocks were generally pieces of limestone. The lime leaching into the water created the nixtamalization, but a side effect was better flavor and aroma in the cornmeal (masa). Soon it became clear that cooking with limestone versus other stones created a superior product, so this became the standard. Most likely the stones were heated in the wood ash underneath the pot, and some ash was likely to enter the food as well. Savvy cooks experimented with various amounts of ash and stone until they achieved the desired flavor.

Once the corn was made into masa, small round balls were flattened by hand, and laid over a large concave piece of pottery called a comal. The comal was treated with a thick layer of limestone dissolved in water, creating a non-stick coating. This would leave a light additional dusting of calcium on every tortilla, making it even more nutritious. Periodically the limestone would be washed onto the comal again, and tortillas naturally slid off the cooking surface, using only fingers. Much safer and longer lasting than the non-stick pans we have today, despite all the advantages of modern chemistry and manufacturing.

Because cooking was traditionally a woman’s chore, tortilla-making was an essential women’s role in Mexican society, but not given much importance. It was just another job in the kitchen. It evolved into micro-businesses for women who developed a particular flair for their nixtamalization process. The skilled tortilla maker began selling to other women, freeing them up to concentrate on other things.

As the industrial revolution hit Mexico, the “wage gap” between women and men became more of a “wage chasm.” However, because tortilla making was not mechanized, it remained an industry owned and run by women. It was an essential strategy used by women of the era to maintain some form of autonomy and financial significance.

Centuries later, we have tried to industrialize nixtamalization, with terrible impact on the environment, the nutritional quality of masa, and excess use of energy resources – not to mention the lack of complex aromas and depth of flavors.

In modern days, the role of women in Mexico has changed. Women who make tortillas to sell, for the most part, are using industrially produced corn meal. The concept of societal roles, and the loss of recognition of traditional flavors, have morphed the tortilla industry into an interesting reflection of society at large. Tortilla making is considered a lower-status job for women. In fact, anthropologist Lauren A. Wynne details how modern Yucatecan Maya women have no intention of making tortillas at home because they consider it lower-class activity, and the qualities of good-tasting tortilla have changed (“I Hate It”: Tortilla-Making, Class and Women’s Tastes in Rural Yucatán, Mexico,” Food, Culture & Society {18:3, 2015}.

An interesting side note to corn and its history, is what happened when the Spaniards came to Mexico. They were enchanted with this new grain. They’d never seen corn before and described it with delight in their letters back home; they created the name tortilla (little cake). They called it this because in southern Spain, where there was a significant Arabic influence, they made small round disks from chickpea flour, and it seemed similar. The Spanish then imported wheat and the flour tortilla was born.

After Europeans began cultivating corn, it became a popular food but led to a pandemic in poorer parts of society because, without nixtamalization, it lacked niacin; the deficiency brought on a disease called pellagra. Symptoms include inflamed skin, diarrhea, dementia, and sores in the mouth. Over time, the skin became thicker, peeled, and bled. If not treated, it was fatal. The same thing happened when Europeans settled in the southern part of the United States. Settlers relied on easily grown corn crops to survive, but neglected to learn the indigenous way of preparation. One could argue Nature herself served up a little social justice.

As most things go, history repeats itself. The traditional ways of cooking are becoming more interesting again, as our food resources become more expensive and less nutritious. There are several cooking schools in Huatulco that offer classes in traditional and modern Mexican cuisine.

There are also still women who make tortillas by hand, with corn they grew and processed themselves. If you are fortunate enough to have organic, indigenous corn, nixtamalized over a fire, and cooked over a traditional comal, you will notice the difference immediately.

Like history, women have always been circular. We have cyclical bodily rhythms, pregnant bellies, round with ripe life. It’s through the family circle we serve our immediate loved ones. We support each other, disguised as crafting circles. It only seems fitting, women will bring this art of circle-shaped tortilla-making back into the mainstream. There is something wholesome and delicious in the process. There’s a connection with the earth, history, and the elements when we connect with indigenous ways of cooking. If you have a chance to make even one tortilla with your own hands, take it. It’s a science and an art, and hopefully, together we can revive the womanly art of circles and tortillas.

March 2023

In Search of Diana Kennedy’s Huachinango Veracruzana

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By Deborah Van Hoewyk

In 1979, seven years after British-born Diana Kennedy published The Cuisines of Mexico, I went to Veracruz, both the city and the state. I thought the food was extraordinary.

The culinary website Serious Eats describes “Jarocho” (the colloquial term for being native to Veracruz) cuisine as “one of Mexico’s simplest,” but “one of its richest.” It was on the shore of Veracruz where Hernán Cortés first set foot, and Spanish cooking – already Mediterranean and Moroccan in its heritage – was quickly adopted and adapted to Jarocho ingredients and techniques, followed by West African influences. (Cortés brought the first six African slaves to Mexico; eventually, over 200,000 Africans came through the port of Veracruz, to be sold in the town of Antigua, about 28 km [±17 miles] west of the port).

The food of coastal Veracruz thus offers all kinds of fish and seafood, cooked in all kinds of ways, served with all kinds of sauces – and Huachinango Veracruzana – Red Snapper a la Veracruz – was the queen of all the dishes I tasted there.

On returning to the States, I went out and bought the Sunset Mexican Cookbook. My copy was from 1977, and was subtitled Simplifed Techniques, 155 Classic Recipes. The American palate of the 1970s was not yet familiar with Mexican cooking, but the Sunset Mexican cookbook sold over a million copies, through 20 printings, with at least five updates between 1969 and 1983.

And one of its recipes, from Diana Kennedy but adapted to American ingredients, was “Snapper Veracruz (Huachinango a la Veracruzana).”

Loved that recipe. Loved especially the green olives, orange juice, golden raisins, cinnamon, and capers. After six moves to three states, I lost my Sunset Mexican cookbook – not that I don’t have others, but none has that exact recipe. That, according to Diana Kennedy, is because the recipe is anything but exact!

The Woman Who Wrote My Remembered Recipe

Culinary anthropologist, cookbook author, chef by default, Diana Southwood was born a hundred years ago (March 3, 1923), in the town of Loughton, England, about 20 miles north of London. The daughter of a kindergarten teacher and a salesman, she lived to be 99, dying at her home in Heroica Zitácuaro, Michoacán, on July 24, 2022. In her twenties, she was a “Lumber Jill” with the Women’s Timber Corps, replacing the men who had gone to fight in WW II, and a housing manager in Scotland, working with mining families. When she was 30, she emigrated to Canada and worked in a film library and sold Wedgewood fine china. She loved to travel, and loved to explore new cuisines; from Canada she started visiting the Caribbean.

On a 1956 trip to the Caribbean, she stopped over in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, on her way home. Staying in the same hotel was American journalist Paul P. Kennedy, the New York Times chief correspondent for Latin America. Kennedy was covering civil unrest in Haiti, where the people were using strikes and demonstrations to force their dictatorial president, Paul Magloire, out of office. She was 33, he was 51 – apparently the attraction was instantaneous; Diana described it as un flechazo, an arrow “shot straight to the heart.” She followed Paul and his “half-promise of matrimony” to his home base, Mexico City; they were married within the year.

The ever-versatile Diana Kennedy took up Spanish and worked as a typist at the British consulate in Mexico City. The Kennedys were popular in the English-speaking community in Mexico City, entertaining and being entertained on a frequent basis; when they ate dinner at the homes of friends, Kennedy as usual was taken with foods they were served. When she asked her hostess (this was the 1950s, people) about a dish, they usually replied that the maid or the cook knew about it.

When she asked the maid or the cook, they replied they made it the way they did it back home in their village. Off Kennedy would go to find out just how they did it back home in the village. This was the process that became Diana Kennedy’s hallmark in researching Mexican cuisine in all its regional variations: ask about the recipe, go to where it came from, ask questions, and learn how to make it with authenticity. All her recipes identified who made them and where they made them.

Her trekking about the rural villages also led her to the cookbooks of Josefina Velásquez de Léon (1899-1968), who had visited church groups in the countryside to document regional cooking. (One might call Velásquez de Léon the first celebrity chef – she cooked on radio in the 1940s and television in the 1950s, published cookbooks, opened a cooking school, and set up her own cookbook publishing house; her papers are in several archive collections, but one of them is the Special Collections of the University of Texas at San Antonio, alongside those of Diana Kennedy.)

One of the Kennedys’ guests in Mexico City was Craig Claiborne, who had joined the New York Times in 1957 as its food editor and off-and-on restaurant critic. When Diana offered to buy him a Mexican cookbook, he is supposed to have said “Not until you have written one!”

Diana Kennedy in New York

But the cookbooks came later, and Craig Claiborne would have a hand in that. Paul Kennedy fell victim to cancer, aggressive prostate cancer. In 1966, the couple drove North to New York City for his treatment. In Nothing Fancy, one of Kennedy’s most personal cookbooks (1984) and a 2019 documentary of the same title by filmmaker Elizabeth Carroll, Kennedy tells a story of that last trip. Eating takeout in some motel somewhere in Texas, “Paul laid his knife and fork down soon after he had started his meal. ‘I don’t know whether to thank you or not,’ he bellowed. ‘Most of my life I could eat anything anywhere, but now look what you have done to me. This damned rubbish!’ and pushed his plate back in disgust.”

Paul Kennedy died on February 2, 1967. Diana was left alone in their apartment on the upper west side of Manhattan. Although all the apartment offered was a galley kitchen, Claiborne had featured Diana’s work on regional Mexican cuisine in the New York Times, and suggested that she could teach authentic Mexican cooking classes. Word got out that Diana’s classes were great, and when Frances McCullough, a poetry editor at Harper & Row, took a class, she told Kennedy that a cookbook was in order. Not that Diana Kennedy knew how to write, but McCullough shepherded her through the process and Kennedy’s first cookbook, The Cuisines of Mexico, came to life in 1972.

It was a struggle to get it published as a quality cookbook, however – Harper & Row thought it would never sell, said they had no money to print it with pictures, and sent a cover design that featured a sombrero sitting on a cactus. Kennedy was furious but McCullough said, “OK, Diana, let’s invite them to lunch. We’ll give them a great meal and lots of margaritas.” It worked. After the publishing executive finished, they started looking at Diana’s slides of the dishes they’d been served, and started saying, “Well, we have to have THAT one … and THAT one,” and so on. “I ended up with a great designer,” Diana recalled.

McCullough would edit the next five cookbooks Kennedy wrote, and remained a friend for life.

Diana Kennedy Moves to Michoacán

Diana went back to Mexico repeatedly to gather the recipes in Cuisines of Mexico, but continued working professionally in the various cooking schools popping up in the U.S., returning to Mexico to hunt up more authentic recipes and culinary techniques in the summer. It took until 1976 to leave New York permanently. According to Kennedy, she told herself, “My God, I’ve got to get out. What am I doing with all these smells, the doggie odors, the exhaust from the restaurants in my face? It’s all so artificial.”

The contrast of authentic and artificial would epitomize the rest of Diana Kennedy’s life. When she went back to Mexico in 1976, she stayed; in 1980, she bought three hectares (just under 7½ acres) about 130 km (about 80 miles) west of Mexico City in Michoacán. There she designed and built Quinta (country house) Diana, her Mexican home and culinary research center. Quinta Diana was supposed to be just a little food museum for Diana’s collection of cooking tools, but the idea that museums were of “dead things” was anathema to Kennedy. She hired an architect and ecological engineer and started a house that incorporated large boulders on the site, rambling up and down a steep hillside, amply graced with perforated walls to encourage fresh breezes through the house. Down the slope is her eco-garden full of local Mexican herbs and vegetables and home to a motley collection of livestock and bees. Quinta Diana is mostly off the grid; Kennedy eventually used it to establish the Diana Kennedy Center, a place for research, teaching, and sustainable living – with sustainable native foods at its heart.

For fifty years or so, Kennedy led a busy professional life from Quinta Diana. She wrote more cookbooks; before leaving New York, she produced her second, The Tortilla Book, in 1975. The rest included Recipes from the Regional Cooks of Mexico (1978), Nothing Fancy: Recipes and Recollections of Soul-Satisfying Food (1984), The Art of Mexican Cooking (1989), My Mexico (1998), From My Mexican Kitchen: Techniques and Ingredients (2003), and Oaxaca al Gusto: An Infinite Gastronomy (2010).

She taught cooking classes and participated in events devoted to international cuisine. She won awards – from the James Beard Foundation, from Mexico (Order of the Aztec Eagle), from Britain (Member of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire).

The Perils of Authenticity

Always a stickler for doing things in just the right way, all the time, Diana Kennedy has had her detractors. There are those who think that cuisine changes and adapts over time, that it was not a “fly preserved in amber.” Kennedy has even castigated the Mexican cooks who took her recipes and evolved them.

There were those who feel her insistence on using lard and lots of crema is unhealthy, and her notion that you should read all the explanations and notes before attempting a recipe – a recipe that might take five days to make all the salsas and bases – is antiquated. Kennedy, on the other hand, says “It’s difficult to educate a whole public … Americans were raised to expect that horrible combination plate – the quick cheap fix.”

Tejal Rao, a New York Times restaurant critic and food writer, believes that Diana Kennedy “changed the way millions of people perceived Mexican Food.” On the other hand, when Kennedy taught Martha Stewart to make Oaxacan tamales de frijol on television, “Wasn’t something lost?” Kennedy would say no, but Tejal Rao pointed out that perhaps a Zapotec cook should have been serving as the expert on her own tamales. Rao also faulted Kennedy for never backing down “from her ludicrous position of dismissing Tex-Mex, California Mexican food and all of the rich, regional cuisines that grew from the Mexican diaspora.”

Nonetheless, after spending more than half her lifetime in grass-roots scholarship across the kitchens of rural Mexico, bouncing around in a beat-up pickup truck with a revolver in the glove compartment, Diana Kennedy made an immeasurable contribution to our understanding of and appreciation for Mexican gastronomy. With her attention to regional differences in Mexican dishes, she laid much of the foundation for the United Nations’ designation of Mexican cuisine as an Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity.

Will I still look for the “right” recipe for Huachinango Veracruzana? Even though Diana Kennedy told me that it’s more likely made with orange juice and raisins in the mountains of Veracruz, maybe in Jalapa? Of course I will.

November 2022

ELENA AND LEONORA:
Two Mexican Writers with European Roots

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By Carole Reedy

Both Elena Poniatowska and Leonora Carrington planted roots in Mexico in 1942, Elena as young girl of ten and Leonora as a well-traveled and rebellious woman of 25. Despite the differences in their ages, both emigrated for reasons sparked by World War II in Europe. In addition, both became Mexican citizens and, ultimately, two of the most influential, powerful, and famous women of Mexico.

Their lives
Young Elena arrived in Mexico from France with her sister and her Mexican mother, whose porfiriana family fled Mexico during the Mexican Revolution of 1910. Elena’s father, of Polish royalty descent, remained in France to fight in the war before joining them.

Being well educated and bien educado led Elena to a career in journalism, writing, and involvement with politics. Her writing often tackles Mexico’s difficult moments in history, such as the 1968 slaughter of protesting students in Tlatelolco and the 1985 Mexico City earthquake. In both cases, she interviewed extensively the people and victims who lived through these tragedies. Biographical sketches, novels, and short story collections are also found among her vast trove of publications.

Poniatowska is one of the founding writers of La Jornada (The Work Day), a major Mexico City newspaper since 1984. Despite not explicitly espousing feminist beliefs, in 1976 she co-founded Fem, the first feminist magazine in Latin America; she was a founding member of Siglo XXI, a prestigious Mexican publishing house, and Mexico’s Cineteca Nacional, the national film archive.

In contrast, Leonora Carrington’s childhood leading to her emigration to Mexico was adventurous, troublesome, and daring. Before she reached the age of 20, she had escaped her prestigious English aristocratic home and her domineering father to be with artist Max Ernst. She and Ernst lived in various parts of France in the early 1940s, but Ernst, being a Jew, was soon detained by the authorities.
Leonora left France for Spain, where she escaped from a mental hospital (an internment that had been orchestrated by her distant father) and fled to Portugal. As an exile, she eventually met and married Renato Leduc, a Mexican poet and writer. The couple, like many others wanting to escape the war, traveled to New York and then Mexico, where Leonora lived for the next 70 years, until her death at 94 in 2011.

The surrealist paintings of Leonora Carrington are found in museums and art exhibits around the world. When she moved to Mexico, knowing no one and not speaking Spanish, she was fortunate to make friends with photographer Kati Horna and painter Remedios Varo, originally from Hungary and Spain respectively. At last, with fellow women artists at her side, she was able to pursue the talent she had demonstrated since a young girl in Great Britain. She rubbed elbows with the likes of Frida Kahlo, Diego Rivera, Joan Miró, and Peggy Guggenheim.

Many people are unaware that Carrington was also an accomplished writer. Like those surreal masterpieces hanging in the world’s museums, her books take on the surreal panache of the author. Drawings, stories, and fantasies all inhabit the long-lived career and life of Leonora Carrington.

Both women led full lives, which they shared with husbands and children.

Their books
The first novel I read cover-to-cover in Spanish was Poniatowska’s Leonora, the fictionalized biography of the famous artist/writer (2011). It’s very accessible, even for those for whom Spanish is a second language, and it is of course a compelling story.

In another fictionalized biography, Tinisima (2006), she tells the story of the short (just 46 years), fascinating, and daring life of Tina Modotti, the famed photographer who kept company with the likes of Edward Weston and Diego Rivera and traveled the world studying spiritual and sexual liberation, militant communism, rigid Stalinism, workers’ revolution in Germany, and the Spanish Civil War, among other causes. A story and life, a book not to be missed.
Poniatowska’s first book, written in 1954, is a collection of short stories called Lilus Kikus. It marks the beginning of her illustrious career.

One of Poniatowska’s most-read and poignant books, La Noche de Tlatelolco: Testiomonios de historia oral (1971), was born out of the police slaughter of university students on October 2, 1968. For this book, she interviewed dozens of observers, parents, and others to give the world an accurate and objective report of the events that left Mexico and the world in shock.

If you’re curious about the details of the 1985 earthquake and its effects on the population, be sure to pick up Nada, nadie: Las voces del temblor (1988) to read first-hand accounts of the tragedy. You will understand the fear earthquakes generate here in the city, especially for those who experienced this tragic event.

Poniatowska’s writing is clear, precise, accurate, and full of poignant imagery. Read one of her books and you will be hooked!

Leonora Carrington’s books will not surprise lovers of her surrealist paintings, as they fall right in step with the style of her art. The Hearing Trumpet (1974) is her most famous work. Read and translated worldwide, it has been called a companion to the beloved Alice in Wonderland.

The Complete Stories of Leonora Carrington issued in 2017 to mark the centennial of Carrington’s birth, is a compilation of her surreal short stories and is filled with magic!

Joanna Moorhead, a cousin of Carrington, recently wrote a very personal biography of the famous artist/writer: The Surreal Life of Leonora Carrington (2017). Having befriended Carrington as an adult, she visited her in Mexico, coming from England several times before Leonora’s death. It’s a good read that admirers of Carrington will enjoy.

Down Below is Leonora’s personal memoir, written in 1988, of her descent into madness as a young woman. A short book, not to be missed – republished in 2017 in the Classics series of the New York Review of Books.

Both Leonora Carrington and Elena Poniatowska, each in her own way, have had a tremendous influence on the cultural and political life in Mexico. Tell your sons and daughters about them, read their books, celebrate their lives!

November 2022

An Eye on the Women of The Eye

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By Marcia Chaiken and Jan Chaiken

Kary Vannice
Kary began writing for The Eye a few months after the initial publication. Her deep curiosity about the world around her led her to contribute a wide range of articles, including a series of articles – each on a different topic but all under the title “Rattlesnakes and Scorpions.”

Kary was born in Moscow, Idaho, which frequently led to scrutiny at international borders. She was raised and educated in Grass Range, population 110, located in the geographical center of Montana. After high school, Kary matriculated at a junior college in Wyoming for two years and then went on to the University of Montana, Missoula, graduating with a BS degree in Forestry with a concentration in recreation and resource management. In the following years, Kary was employed by the US Forest Service in a number of national forests including Mount Saint Helens National Volcanic Monument in Washington, Sawtooth National Forest in Idaho, Earthquake Lake, just west of Yellowstone National Park, and Gallatin National Forest, both in Montana. Her roles ranged from resource education, giving tours and talks to visitors, to fire fighting. To supplement her income Kary started a private outdoor educational camp and worked at the Big Sky Ski School.

While fighting a fire in Montana, Kary noticed another fire fighter, a handsome boy from Chile. Naturally, the relationship heated up and Kary moved with him to land that his parents owned in Patagonia. After about 18 months, the couple moved to Seattle where they bought and lived on a sail boat. Kary’s first trip to the Pacific Coast of Mexico was on that boat. While sailing to Chile, the mast on the boat failed, which required
extensive repairs at Easter Island. Once back in Chile and the boat was docked, the five-year relationship cooled and Kary headed back to Montana with a knowledge of Spanish and refined and tested nautical skills.

Kary exercised those skills by teaching English in Mexico in Orizaba, Veracruz, for three years. It was on a school break that she revisited the Oaxacan coast and realized that she would like to live in Puerto Escondido during most of the year. During the summer, Kary headed to Alaska where she worked on fishing boats and was often second in command, gaining the respect of boat captains and seasoned seamen alike.

During a trip to Huatulco to work on a project to create all natural health clinics, Kary participated in a Red Cross fundraiser where she met a resident of Huatulco who had started a business teaching people how to work online while living in other countries. Impressed with how Kary rapidly organized the fundraiser participants, the businessman
hired her. When the business began to increase rapidly, commuting from Puerto Escondido became cumbersome and Kary moved to Huatulco over nine years ago, first living on a boat in the Chahué Marina.

Today Kary has her own company, Rambladera Inc., which teaches people what they need to know to work while living in other countries. She also is a life coach for women and practices emotional vibrational healing. Outside of work, Kary loves to travel and has been throughout the Americas and Europe but not yet Asia, Africa or Antarctica. She also enjoys water sports and, like the other women of The Eye, reading. Kary thinks her Eye article, “Violence Against Women in Mexico” (February 2017) may be the most important she contributed, since she herself was affected by the distressing research results she presented and believes it is vital for other people to have this information.

October 2022

An Eye on the Women of The Eye

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By Marcia Chaiken and Jan Chaiken

Deborah Van Hoewyk

Deborah joined The Eye writers in January 2012 and more recently took on the role of copy editor. Her articles often focus on fund-raising activities of local nonprofit organizations and Mexican culture. Deborah has been actively involved with small community activities since her childhood. Although she was born in Providence, Rhode Island, she was raised and educated in Cumberland, Maine, starting with a one-room schoolhouse. Her first high school years were spent at a local co-ed high school until her parents arranged for her transfer to an all-girls high school. After that, she attended Wellesley College, a prestigious women’s educational institution in Massachusetts, where she first majored in Latin and then English. Having met and married the requisite Harvard man, she left Wellesley after three years and followed her new husband to New York City.

The marriage lasted 10 years, during which Deborah completed a BS degree in English at Columbia University and launched her career in writing and editing, working for a number of organizations including the Foreign Policy Association, Columbia University, New York City agencies, and (Stanley) Kaplan, Inc. After leaving her husband to live on a barge moored in the Bronx, Deborah continued her writing career and earned an MA degree in English from Queens College of the City University of New York. She also met John, her second and current husband, at a cafeteria at CUNY.

After 20 years in New York and a brief hiatus back in Maine, Deborah moved to Detroit and a job writing materials for the auto companies to support their training and development programs. She then enrolled in the urban planning Ph.D. program at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, first concentrating on socio-technology and then switching to the field of microenterprise. To support her studies, she taught technical communication in the UM College of Engineering for 18 years. John followed Deborah to Ann Arbor and found a long-term position as a statistician conducting social survey research at the university. They were married in 1986 and in 1987 bought a 40-acre farm on which they raised sheep, goats, pigs and poultry for over 20 years. They retired to Maine in 2010.

Deborah’s first trip to Mexico was in 1979 to visit a friend in Jalapa. After a number of later short visits to various parts of Mexico, in 2004 she and John visited Oaxaca City and decided to also see Huatulco, since it looked “so close” on the map. Even though the road trip was much longer than expected, once here they knew they would return. They bought a house in Huatulco in 2007 where they spent every vacation, renting it out between their stays. Once they retired, their Huatulco time increased until currently they are here about 5.5 months each year. Deborah’s busy life includes belonging to two book clubs but doesn’t allow much time to read other books. She devotes much of her time to writing grant proposals for nonprofit organizations, often gratis, and helping other worthy organizations raise funds. And of course, copy-editing and writing for The Eye is a substantial commitment. Her favorite contribution to the Eye is “The Wisdom of Maíz –Will It Lose Its Voice?” (September 2012).

August 2022

An Eye on the Women of The Eye

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By Marcia Chaiken and Jan Chaiken

Carole Reedy

Carole, one of the founding writers of The Eye, may be best known for her many Eye articles providing reviews of books. Born, raised and educated through high school in the south side of Chicago, Carole attended Western Michigan University in Kalamazoo for two years, majoring in English Literature and Education with a minor in Music. She completed her B.A. degree and certification for teaching at DePaul University in Chicago and then taught high school for three years in Maywood, Illinois. She realized that her true career path was in publications and first became a proof-reader of teaching manuals at the Bell and Howell manufacturing company, then a copy editor at the American Medical Association where she ultimately became the Senior Editor of an AMA publication focused on health for consumers.

While still teaching, Carole met her first long-term partner. They made the mutual decision to move to the Phoenix area of Arizona, where Carole developed a love of the desert, met her husband-to-be and switched careers to the travel industry. She first worked for a friend’s travel agency and then for many years for American Express advising platinum cardholders on their travel plans. Since Carole is passionate about travel and has visited every continent except Antarctica by herself or with small groups of friends, the new career was a perfect match – until she and her husband decided that they wanted to adopt a completely different, less complicated, life style and in 1997, moved to San Miguel Allende and in 1999, to San Augustinillo, a small village on the Oaxaca coast. Unfortunately, her husband died the following year, but Carole remained in the village for nine years and, even after having moved to Mexico City about 15 years ago, still has close friends there and is esteemed by many for having established the San Agustinillo Library.

Living in Mexico City allows Carole to indulge her deep interest in opera and bull-fighting. She also enjoys playing social bridge and, recently, mahjong. She maintains close connections with her three step-children, seven grandkids, and many friends in Mexico and the U.S. But although she encourages visits to see her in Mexico, she is now a Mexican citizen and has no interest in returning to the U.S.

Carole met Jane Bauer many years ago while still living in San Augustinillo. Since Jane knew about Carole’s background, when she decided to publish the Eye, Jane called Carole and asked for her participation. More than ten years later she is still writing. Her favorite Eye contributions are her end-of-the-year book reviews.

July 2022

An Eye on the Women of The Eye

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By Marcia Chaiken and Jan Chaiken

Brooke Gazer
Brooke has also been contributing a diverse spectrum of articles to The Eye since the beginning of the publication. One of the few Mexican citizens on staff, Brooke brings her relatively long-term year-round residence to inform her writing about local organizations and people as well as Mexican history and government.

Brooke was born, raised and educated in Calgary, Alberta; she received a B.Ed. degree, majoring in Fine Arts and Drama, from the University of Calgary. In between high school and college she spent a year traveling and working in Europe, first as an au pair in Munich, Germany, and then selling clothing in a posh ladies’ store in London, England. She returned to Europe, studying art history in Italy as part of her major concentration. After university, she taught arts and drama in junior and senior high school in rural Alberta, managed an art gallery for three years, spent two years selling and creating advertisements for a lifestyle magazine, and then settled down for a relatively long career as a pharmaceutical company representative.

While she was managing the art gallery, she met her husband Rick at a fitness club where both were members and after dating for a number of years, they married. Both enjoyed traveling and visited Asia three times (Hong Kong, Korea, India, Sri Lanka, Thailand and Burma). Over the years, they also made several trips to Mexico. But it was during their first trip, forty years ago, that Brooke began to think about running a B&B. She was sitting in a garden at a bed and breakfast, owned by an American couple in San Miguel Allende, and she thought, “What a great life this would be.” The idea seemed so farfetched that she never mentioned this to anyone, not even Rick.

When her job as a pharmaceutical rep seemed to pale, however, she raised the idea. They tried out the concept, renting out two rooms in their house in Calgary. Three years later, they packed up all their belonging, sold their house and drove to Mexico. For six months, they explored every beach community on the Pacific Coast, from San Carlos, Sonora, to Huatulco, Oaxaca. When they reached Huatulco, they knew they had found the perfect place. They bought property, designed and built their new B&B and successfully ran the business for 22 years. At the end of 2021, they sold the enterprise and moved to Merida along with their 12-year-old golden retriever, Tango.

Brooke will continue contributing to The Eye from Merida. Her favorite past contribution was the article she wrote on the Mexican Revolution, “Viva la Revolución” (November 2013); she enjoyed the research needed to understand and explain the complexity of this civil war.

March 2022

Editor’s Letter

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By Jane Bauer

“The story of women’s struggle for equality belongs to no single feminist nor to any one organization but to the collective efforts of all who care about human rights.”
Gloria Steinem

I am grateful to the generation of women that came before me and told me that I could be anything. Yet, for me, this also translated into the idea that I had to do everything. While I wanted a career I also wanted to be the kind of mother who drives the kids to tennis lessons and picks them up from school. The world I was raised in didn’t make it seem very possible to have both, and career was definitely considered better and more respect-worthy than becoming a housewife.

The world today is different. Being able to work remotely and have flexible hours has made it easier than ever for women to have a work/life balance. Reproductive choice – access to birth control and pregnancy termination – has also made it easier for women to choose what their future will look like.

Every International Women’s Day we celebrate the women who are making strides ahead. We raise them up on pedestals as examples of what is possible. We applaud our gender and marvel at how far we have come. Those who have peeked over the glass ceiling give speeches on how they hope to inspire girls to strive to the top of whichever field they choose.

But if the standard we hold for success is that every woman become a doctor, CEO or climate change activist we will always fall short of our goal.

Rather than look at the millions of women who spend their days caring for their family as failed potential, we could elevate our value of the tasks that occupy them. What if we elevated the value we put on what is termed ‘women’s work’?

What if we shifted our expectations of what it means to be a feminist to be more inclusive to those who haven’t had access to academic schooling on gender theory or the chance to get an MBA?

This IWD let us celebrate the women who are doing laundry in rivers, carpooling their kids to hockey, cooking dinner while staying on budget, helping with science class volcanos and mediating tantrums from toddlers.

Because while it is encouraging to be taught you can do anything, being taught that you are enough is true empowerment.

See you next month,

Jane