hot dogs—a lot. My recipes are a culmination of my own experiences, and I hope that this book inspires you to come up with your own creations informed by a culture, a collection of flavors, and an array of cooking techniques that may be new to you as well.
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About the Cuisine of Tucson
Tucson is a hot, dusty college town located just sixty miles north of the Mexican border and situated between Santa Fe and Southern California. It boasts both in physicality and style a truly unique cuisine.
Tucson was first in the U.S. to be designated a “City of Gastronomy” by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), an agency promoting diversity around the world. Tucson’s unparalleled cuisine is influenced by the city’s location in the Sonoran Desert and its proximity to Mexico. Over the years, Native American and Hispanic cultures have mixed with generations of settlers who moved to the Southwest looking for a new life.
Like many American cities, Tucson is a patchwork of cultures that began long before the Europeans got here. What’s different is the unique and evolving makeup of that patchwork, and how it has grown into a vibrant and thriving community.
Tucson is one of the oldest continually inhabited regions in the world. The Paleo Indians lived here at least 12,000 years ago. They were hunter-gatherers who lived on the edible flora and fauna. When it was time to hunt, they relied more on small game like rabbit and quail than large game that also roamed the region, such as the giant prehistoric ground sloths. Some of these unique native plants and, to a lesser extent, animals are still part of the local cuisine today. (Not the ground sloths—they’re extinct.)
Beginning about 4,000 years ago, the Hohokam Indians learned how to grow crops using ditches that collected rainwater and irrigation canals that diverted water from naturalwaterways.
As time passed, the regional cuisine evolved. Several key turning points had a major impacton Tucson’s culinary evolution: the development of irrigation; land wars and Manifest Destiny (this region was ruled by
Native cultures, then Mexico, then Spain, then Mexico again. In 1912, it became one of the last territories to join the United States); the railroad, which brought an influx of new settlers (and new foods) in the 1880s; and, finally, higher education and the military, which brought major sources of population and cultural expansion in the 20th century.
Many years later, in 1992, eighty years after Arizona became a state, and twenty-five years after I was born, I came to Tucson.
People used to ask me, in a voice that conveyed some level of astonishment, “Why Tucson?” They don’t ask me that anymore (or at least not in the same tone).
Now the secret is out, and Tucson has become well known for how special it is. Not just for the unique flora and fauna and the enviable number of sunny days—it is a place where nature is still held in balance with city life. Where nature is incorporated into not only our cuisine, but in much of our dailylives.
This region is still connected to the past.To Native cultures.To Mexico.To the Spanish.To early settlers from around the globe, which include Chinese immigrants, who helped build the railroad.
The cuisine and culture are constantly evolving, as they should. People’s personal histories have merged with the region and have grown and evolved just as the area has. I want to pay tribute to all the cultures this community was built on.
I didn’t start out wanting to teach people how to cook. My main area of creative interest was always integrating words and pictures. This town was the catalyst for me to explore writing and photography, and food and cooking, in a new way. I hope this book inspires you as much as Tucson has inspired me.
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ABOUT SONORAN-STYLEFOOD
The cuisine of this region emphasizes its connection to Sonora, a state in Mexico. Though the borders have been redrawn over the years, Sonora (which Tucson was part of until only very recently) remains only sixty miles away.
This cookbook is about inclusion and it is also about diversity. You will see the merging of cultures over time and the way food has progressed in one of the oldest continually inhabited cities in North America.
You have at your fingertips an array of basic dishes that are staples of Sonoran-style Mexican cuisine, as well as dishes that are mix-and-match reinterpretations of the classics, with contributionsfrom the region’s most celebrated chefs.
You will gain a foundational knowledge of Sonoran cuisine, but you will also learn how chefs have expanded upon those basics. It is my hope that by the end of this book you will be ready for yourownexplorations.
TUCSON-AREA CHEFS
All the local chefs featured in this book have contributed to the culinary flavor of this town, winning awards and accolades in the process. I first met most of them while on photography and food writing assignment for various publications over the years, and they are a big part of why I wanted to create this book. Their creativity and dedication to their craft is truly phenomenal.
Tucson boasts hundreds of Mexican restaurants —more than I have seen anywhere else in this country. Part of the reason for this is that Tucson was part of Mexico for much, much longer than it has been part of the United States. Not all these chefs work at Mexican restaurants, but they have all been influenced, as I have, by our proximity to Mexico, by the community as a whole, and by local history and regional ingredients.
CONTRIBUTING CHEFS
Daniel Contreras: El Guero CaneloSuzana Davila: Café Poca Cosa and
The LittleOneCarlotta Flores and the Flores family:
El Charro CaféBenjamin Galaz: BK Tacos Don Guerra: Barrio BreadGary Hickey: Charro SteakAmanda Horton: Desert ProvisionsBryan Keith: Pinnacle Peak Steakhouse Teresa Matias and the Matias family:
MosaicCaféMaria Mazon: BOCA Tacos y Tequila Isela Mejia: El Sur Restaurant Travis Peters: The Parish Janos Wilder: Downtown Kitchen and Cocktails Patricia Schwabe: Penca Bruce Yim: Hacienda Del Sol
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Tucson History & Timeline
Tucson is one of the oldest continually inhabited communities in the world.
10,000 BCE Paleo and Archaic hunters and gatherers are found to have settled here.
1000BCE Evidence of agricultural settlements are located near waterways.
200 to 1450 CE Hohokam culture thrives. Pima and Tohono O’odham are their descendants.
~1540 The Coronado Expedition crosses Arizona in search of the “Seven Cities of Gold.” Conquistadors are the first to introduce horses and other Old World livestock to the region.
~1650 The first Europeans settle in the region. By then the Hohokam culture
