Arri London muttered....

>
>
> Olivers wrote:
>>
>> My _Mexican Cookbook_, Erna Ferguson, U of NMexico Press, 1945
>> edition of
>> 1934 original, does not contain Chili con Queso or anything closely
>> related.
>>
>> On the other hand, it does feature a dish called "Burritos", fresh
>> corn tortillas rolled thick, stuffed with chicharonnes (described as
>> are today's versions) and then baked...a far cry from the burritos of
>> today. Evidence of its New Mexico origin, the book is filled with
>> recipes calling for squash, green corn and green chiles.
>>
>> TMO
>
> Erna Fergusson certainly was a well-known figure in Albuquerque.
> However, she was Anglo and it wouldn't surprise me if her style of
> cooking differed somewhat from Hispanic 'Mexican' cooking of the time.
> (One of the ABQ public library branches is named after her.)

Looking through the slim little red book (faded now, but with a couple of
fragments of yellow cover stuck to the binding courtesy of a water-soaking
of the bottom inch), there are some items of interest....

1) The inscription, to my mother from my father....
"These enchiladas sound like Ramona's Kitchen. How about some."

Where was "Ramona's Kitchen"? Looking at the recipe, "stacked" enchiladas
topped with fried egg and containing chopped ripe olives, leads me to
believe that it may have been in the San Diego area where we lived early in
WWII or in the ABQ area, not back home in Texas. In my earliest memories
of ABQ, passing through on 66/Central Avenue, we would detour to the Plaza
to eat at La Placita, still there, not near so good as memory, even the
sopapillas for which it may have been best known.

2) I forget that New Mexico has a North and a South (Las Cruces, Roswell,
the Middle Pecos and a strip across the state above IH10) but also a
"Central", ABQ and environs.

3) _Mexican Cookbook_ is far less Anglo than you might expect, pretty
solidly lard with a little olive oil. Lots of squash (but no blossoms).
Garbanzos, unknown in TexMexeria or Anglo cuisine, even a few mutton
recipes. I'd call it solidly "North Central". Lots of store-bought yellow
cheese, but homemade goat and cowsmilk cheeses. The omission of soft tacos
or much in the way of variety/organ meats in almost any form moves it up to
the Cetral Part of the state.

4) The foreword claims that the recipes are all in a category which were
used in New Mexico when it was part of Mexico. I'm guessing that there was
a purposeful attempt to avoid modernizations such as "Creesco".

5) I had always thought that the inclusion of ripe olives with enchiladas,
stacked or rolled, was a "California" thing, and am interested to see them
used in new Mexican cuisine. Original or cultural transposition?

6) The book would have been appealing certainly to tourists, but more
likely was aimed at the quickly multiplying Anglo "immigrant" residents of
the ABQ area, numbers of which must have swelled vastly during WWII. I
suspect that the 3rd edition/printing of 1945, was a bigger run than the
'34 and '40 editions.

For those interested in how ethnic/regional cuisines and US lifestyles
change, among the most vivid (if not always accurate) accounts are found in
the pages of church, women's clubs and "Junior League" cookbooks (with the
Junior League versions providing amazing insight as to the social and
eating habits of regionally and locally identifiable affluent middle
classes for a 20-30 year period prior to publication). Unfortunately, when
attempting to compare ethnic recipes with original "European" versions,
readers have to reconstruct bridges from modern to "homeland" based on the
arrival of penniless immigrants forced to adapt their mothers' recipes to
affordable and available substitute ingredients.

The "Kolaces" of West, Texas are likely a bit different than the ones in
the bakeries of what was Moravia, just as the local "smoked sausage" of the
Brazos and Colorado valleys represent local ingredients melded into
traditions ranging from Alsace to the edge of old Russia.

I'm sure there are mutually incompatible theories as to how "fried pies"
arrived in Nachitoches (Nac-o-tish) and how rice got into boudin....(or
along what minute of Longitude, andouille becomes "smoked sausage", and who
the Hell ever first contemplated deep frying blue crab and calling it
"barbecued").

TMO