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 A Taco Testimony: Meditations on Family, Food and Culture
By Denise Chávez
Reviewed By Charlotte Tallman
Everything in my life then was family. Not much else mattered. And so to understand what tacos mean to me, you need to understand what family is and was.
– Denise Chavez
Author, border issue activist and cultural leader Denise Chávez has managed to combine the importance of family, the living and the dead and tacos, of all things, in her recent book A Taco Testimony: Meditations on Family, Food and Culture. While the topics as a group are unique and probably never found together in one book before, the cultural writing Chávez is known for weaves its way throughout the book. The chapters are written like a nine-course meal beginning with the Aperitif, then moving through to the After-Dinner Digestif (there is a final chapter on Leftovers.)
Black and white photos of Chávez and her family, poems and authentic recipes are found throughout the book, as well as her memories of family love, alcoholism and her mother’s “Taco Table.”
“This is not a sweet little book about tacos; it remembers the fights that began at the kitchen table, spilled into the dining room, then moved quickly into the living room and continued into the bedroom with the sudden slam of a door that led to the hushed sound of someone crying behind the door,”Chávez writes as her first sentence of the book. She continues on, taking the reader through tears, laughter, and above all else, food.
Chávez, who lives in Las Cruces, is the founder and director of the Cultural Center de Mesilla and the Border Book Festival and is the author of The Last of the Menu Girls, Face of an Angel and Loving Pedro Infante.
A Taco Testimony is available at booksellers everywhere or call (505) 524-1499 or amazon.com
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