For Karla Tatiana Vasquez, eating and cooking Salvadoran food with her family has never been just about the food –– it’s what makes her feel most Salvadoran.
Vasquez, who was born in El Salvador, grew up in Los Angeles watching her family use meals to pass on what they remembered of their war-torn homeland.
“I’m very fortunate that my family always wanted to talk about what they experienced [in El Salvador]. And every time we did, it was literally while we were eating,” Vasquez told HuffPost. “And I think it’s because food creates a buffer, you know, not looking at each other face to face. …You’re eating, and you’re listening, and it kind of filled up this space.“
Now the food writer and historian is the author of “The SalviSoul Cookbook: Salvadoran Recipes & The Women That Preserve Them,” the first cookbook of Salvadoran recipes by a major U.S. publisher. It goes on sale Tuesday. It is the book Vasquez always wanted to read growing up.
But getting the book made was not easy. During her near-decade-long odyssey to being published, Vasquez faced rejections from agents who did not understand why the book mattered. , as well as a lack of written research of Salvadoran gastronomy by Salvadorans.
One major reason there aren’t more Salvadoran recipes written down? The Salvadoran civil war that caused traumatizing silences and has kept many recipes from being documented in the U.S. diaspora, Vasquez said.
That’s why Vasquez said if she wanted to write about her roots, it could only ever be through the healing connection food offers.
“I have tremendous love for Salvadoran mothers, Salvadoran grandmothers, Salvadoran women, because I’ve seen what the women in my life have had to go through to secure survival for us, and I really just want to show them care,” Vasquez said. “And so I feel like a way to do that is to have our stories written down.“
To honor these cultural memories, Vasquez interviewed 33 Salvadoran women who were either family, like her beloved grandmother Mamá Lucy, friends, or people Vasquez found through SalviSoul, her Salvadoran cookbook storytelling project. Short stories of their love, heartbreak and resilience are interspersed between the recipes these Salvadoran women shared with Vasquez.
Vasquez said the compilation approach to her cookbook is “insisting that the place I get any kind of authority isn’t from an institution that’s backed by white folks. It’s a collective of women who some of…
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