Book about California Mexican food

[mayuchico]

Does anybody know a good source about California Mexican food? History, definitions, etc? I have been looking for books, but can't find anything.

[mayuchico]

cgfan and AAQjr

Thanks a lot for detailed information!

[dave_c]

Thumb through this book if you can find it...
"Recipe of Memory: Five Generations of Mexican Cuisine" by Victor M. Valle and Mary Lau Valle

[mayuchico]

I will check it out the book. Thanx!

[cgfan]

As a start I'd recommend obtaining a copy of Gastronomica's (University of California Press) in-depth article on the history of the Taco Shop in Southern California. I don't have the article with me right now, but I'm sure it was well referenced with bibliographic sources. I'll post further information as soon as I can find the specific issue.

[mayuchico]

Thank you so much! I will looki for it.

[JalamaMama]

Maybe not what you are looking for...but California Rancho Cooking is what I would recomend. My favorite book to pull out when I want to read about how food used to be enjoyed in old California.

[chow_eb]

Here's a second for California Rancho Cooking. It's not a academic treatise, it's a great cookbook that's an enjoyable read about old California as well as having some good recipes.

The author is Jacqueline Higuera McMahan. She used to have a column in the Chronicle years ago. The book is available on Amazon for a good price.

[AAQjr]

Rancho Cooking is a Great book! Recipes are yummy and the stories are interesting.

Another one to look out for is Encarnacions Kitchen from the Univercity of California press. Great look at the Food, people, politics and mulicultural early california food

Arturo

http://www.ucpress.edu/books/pages/91...

[cgfan]

mayuchico: So sorry, but I think I was mistaken. After looking through all of my back-issues of Gastronomica, I came to the realization that I may have instead seen the article in an issue of Saveur. Unfortunately I do not consistently save back-issues of Saveur, but I will see if I can come across the article for you and will post with the bibliographic information...

[AAQjr]

cgfan, Have faith in your memory.

Gastronomica, Winter '08; Starts on pg. 26

[cgfan]

Yes, thank you very much! That's it! Now come to think of it I had loaned that issue out and that's why I hadn't come across it in my earlier search...

For the OP's benefit here's a link to the Table of Contents for the issue: http://www.gastronomica.org/issues080...

"Was the Taco Invented in Southern California?", by Jeffrey Pilcher