The food of Santa Fe is not offered merely so that you can imitate austerity. Even without the adobe colored hills, the rounded junipers, and the Mexican sun, there is still in this cooking, a quality of Unsmoothed touch, or as Willa Cather called it " that irregular and intimate quality of things made entirely by the human hand." Huntley Dent

{HISTORY}

The stepchild of Mexican cooking, the food of Santa Fe is really a combination of many different cultural factors that make up the food landscape of this artistic city in the desert. Starting with the indigenous tribes and evolving with the waves of transplants that came from other states and other countries, the City Different boasts a cuisine that is indeed different from the rest of the United States. 

In the early 1980s, Huntley Dent set out to explore what exactly makes food made, grown and created in Santa Fe different. It's not Tex Mex, it's not Mexican. It's not California Southwest or Cowboy food or Native American cuisine.  It's all those wrapped up in a tangled web of influences that also stretched to include pioneer foods made by  East Coast families and European immigrants that settled the land. It's ranch house food that fed migrating, seasonal workers and it's restaurant food that commercialized New Mexican fare for tourists. Drawing from all those influences Huntley created a cookbook that included all those tweaks to a cuisine that continuously blended the past and the present.   

Published in 1985, The Feast of Santa Fe is a comprehensive look at the essentials that make up the basis of New Mexico's food landscape. Covering ingredients, techniques, kitchen essentials, history, and over 150 recipes, it was a comprehensive sourcebook for anyone looking to replicate similar fare in the modern 20th century, whether they lived locally or continents away. 

That being said, the array of recipes featured here is fascinating, Green chiles feature prominently in many ingredient lists along with a handful of frequently used spices. Interesting recipes include Sweet and Sour Relish for Barbecue, Pueblo Indian Tortillas, Sage and Cumin Bread with Cheese Filling, Chorizo Breakfast Sausage, Peanut and Chipolte Enchiladas, Rolled Corn Tortillas with Carnitas, Tamales with Pork and Almond Filling, Arroz Con Pollo, Stuffed Turkey Breast with Pumpkin Seed Sauce, Chili Bean Casserole, Pureed Chick-Peas with Red Chiles and Tomatoes, Blue Cornmeal Mush, Boiled Lemon Cake, Little Pies with Peach Butter and Pinons, White Cocoa Flan and Tequila and Lime Sherbert. 

Accompanying most recipes are small stories detailing history or cooking advice or food lore or a menagerie of fun facts that make for interesting reading along with interesting cooking. 

{SPECIAL FEATURES}

 - Published in 1985 by Simon & Schuster 

 - 397 pages

 - Illustrated throughout with drawings by Susan Gaber 

{CONDITION}

In beautiful vintage condition, this book contains no cooking spots, stains or notations. The interior and exterior are clean and bright. The dust jacket is completely intact, although there is a small chippy area on the top edge of the spine portion.  The spine is tight and all pages are intact.

{SIZE}

Measures  9.5" inches (length) x 6.5" inches (width) x 1.25" inches (thickness) and weighs 1.10 lbs.