First Foods of America Mexican Cookbook - Personalized Limited Edition

Before you ask: NO, the chili recipes don't contain beans. And it ain't Tex Mex, either. It's the food Stephen F. Austin and the Old 300 encountered when they came to Texas - passed from Aztecs into Mexican life, into Texas culture, and still served up on our tables today. 

The recipes in this little book entered one family's DNA in San Antonio and Mexico in the 1840s and had been Texas-tested for four generations in 1936 when the book was originally published.  

They were collected by Pinkie Jane Taylor McNeil. Pinkie's grandparents visited San Antonio en route to Mexico on the cusp of the Mexican-American War. After two decades there, three generations of women returned to Texas following the Civil War. Pinkie Jane was a baby then. She grew up on the Mexican fare of her grandmother and mother in Goliad. 

Miss Pinkie married Clarence McNeil, a young printer from Columbus, Texas, and served up her grandmother's enchiladas in their marital home in Laredo. The story came full circle when they moved to Bexar circa 1900, where Mrs. McNeil could mingle with the famous Chili Queens. 

She committed her family's recipes to paper. Pinkie's daughter (Edna) and daughter-in-law (Blanche) published them in her lifetime. It warms my heart to know she lived to see the book. It warms my tummy to pore over the pages. 

What you won't find are flour tortillas, fajitas, and lots of cumin - three things that make our Tex Mex a different breed. Here's a tasting menu of what you will find:

• Chalupas (chicken and avocado varieties)
• Tacos (chorizo, shrimp, San Luis)
• Tortillas (corn)
• Queso (served on toast?)
• Enchiladas (pork, cheese, verdes)
• Tamales (traditional + baked tamales and tamale pie)
• Soups (tortilla, lentil, creamed tomato, fish, tapioca)
• Mole (kettle, country, and green)
• Chicken (with chiles and beans, crazy sauce and almond sauce)
• Chili
• Beans (refried and black)

Salsas, mojos, huevos rancheros and other egg preparations, fruit preserves, pastries, hot and cold drinks, stuffed vegetables, breads, and seafood are all well-represented. For those who partake, there's lengua, pigs' feet and calves' feet.

190 recipes in all. 

This is fun, hearty food full of love that gives us an historical glimpse into what Texans past were tasting. I gave the book generous margins so you can make your own notes as you tweak the recipes to your taste and your family. 

The Physical Details

• Hardcover in personalized dust jacket
• 150 pages 
• Limited Edition of 254 hand-numbered copies
  
• Taste Texas history