Encarnación’s Kitchen

Book excerpt: "It's a rare cookbook that is as pleasurable to think about as it is to cook from. But that's what Dan Strehl has accomplished with his elegant translation of Encarnación’s Kitchen, a book that provides a fascinating look at the life and cooking of the wealthy Californios in the final days of the rich Rancho culture of California."—Russ Parsons, author of How to Read a French Fry "At long last! It is with enormous pleasure that I greet Dan Strehl’s authoritative English translation, Encarnación’s Kitchen. I should like to have had the original Spanish edition as well, but I dream."—Karen Hess, author of The Carolina Rice Kitchen "Encarnación’s Kitchen is far more than a historical curiosity, or a mere kitchen fragment that sketches silhouettes of ingredients and techniques. The recipes of Encarnación Pinedo’s kitchen, brought alive and set in context by Dan Strehl (and Victor Valle’s lucid introduction), offer rich examples of how California’s Mexican culinary culture developed as it bumped into—and cross-pollinated with—young, multifarious America. These dishes lay bare the often overlooked reality that food can be more than a reflection of culture. Food, as Encarnación understood, can be a seductively delicious catalyst for social understanding, change, even rebellious protest."—Rick Bayless, author of Mexico One Plate at a Time