Rachel Laudan

In a couple of weeks, I’m off to what should be a really interesting conference on nationalism and cuisine in Latin America. For the first time ever, historians and anthropologists from (or working in) many parts of Latin America, including Mexico, Peru, Venezuela, Puerto Rico, Columbia, Bolivia and Brazil  are gathering.  It’s open, so if [...]

Until recently Jewish Mexican cooking was unknown outside the 50,000 Mexican Jews, most of whom arrived in the early twentieth century. [EDIT.  Here I am ignoring the Jews who came in the sixteenth century.  That is a whole other and distinct story.] In Mexico, the search for the Mexican tradition, for indigenous and colonial Spanish [...]

Here’s a really long overdue post, promised to Chef Lastino Apochito a year ago when I was visiting Panama City for the quite fascinating first Panamá Gastronómica. He approached me after a session on the Afro-Antillean cuisine to be found in Panamá. He was, he said, worried that his people, the Embera, were losing their [...]