Beyond Recipes: Mother-Daughter Relations in Nineteenth-Century Mexican Cookbooks

Amalia Sosa Haby, University of Arizona

In this study, I use Mexican cookbooks such as Recetas que escribió mi madre con amor para sus hijas (Recipes That My Mother Wrote with Love for Her Daughters), Herencia de sabores (Inherited Flavours) and Delicias y sabores (Treats and Flavours), as starting points for exploring mother-daughter relationships in 19th century Mexico. Situating cookbooks in the historical context in which they were produced, I argue that cookbooks offer insight into the more sentimental and interpersonal aspects of mother-daughter relationships within the household. intergenerational knowledge production, childrearing, and even children’s (or young women’s) pastimes. Manuscript cookbooks in nineteenth-century Mexico did not merely preserve recipes; they staged and transmitted affective mother-daughter relations through the language of inheritance, care, and household instruction

No extended abstract or paper available

 Presented in Session 38. Gender and the Making of Knowledge across Traditional and Modern Institutions