Josefina Velázquez de León

Josefina Velázquez de León was born in 1889 in Aguascalientes. Her mother was María Peón Valdez, a member of a socially prominent family from Guadalajara. Josefina was the oldest of four daughters. The family moved to Mexico City shortly before the youngest daughter, María Luisa, was born in 1905. Velázquez de León married businessman Joaquín González just before her thirtieth birthday and González died eleven months later. The two had no children together and Velázquez de León never remarried.[1]

During the 1930s Velázquez de León published recipes in the Poblano publication Mignon Magazine. These recipes were focused on home cooking and giving guidelines to women about how to start a small home business. This experience led her to form the Velázquez de León Cooking Academy by the end of the decade.[3] In the cooking school, Velázquez de León traveled to various states of the country promoting a national gastronomy proposal based on the relationship between good eating, family spending, nutrition, history, and regional cuisine. Velázquez de León promoted a revaluation of home cooking in addition to classifying and cataloging the diversity of dishes of national cuisine. In her cooking classes she taught modules and subjects such as: daily simple cooking, modern cooking, haute cuisine, simple baking, artistic jellies, and Mexican specialties.[4]

In the late 1930s, she published her first cookbook Manual practico de cocina repostería.[5] By the mid-1940s, Velázquez de León started her publishing house, Ediciones J. Velázquez de León, which was dedicated exclusively to publishing Mexican and international cookbooks. Publications were distributed through correspondence, sending classes to students in other states by mail until the 1960s, making her a pioneer in this field.[6] Her work Platillos regionales de la República Mexicana (1946) highlighted the culinary identity and characteristics of the food from more than half of the Mexican states. In her book, Cómo cocinar en los aparatos modernos (1949), she updated cooking techniques by teaching how to cook in Presto's express cooker, Ekco's miracle oven, and Oster's and Sunbeam's electric mixers.[7] Velázquez de León ultimately published more than 140 cookbooks across her career.

Cover of the book "La cocina en el aire" by Josefina Velázquez de León.

In addition to publishing, Velázquez de León ventured into radio and television broadcasting. In February 1946, she launched her daily radio show La flojera en la cocina on station XEW. Velázquez de León created programming for other Mexico City radio stations as well, XEQ, XEK, and XEJP, and eventually compiled many of the featured recipes into a book entitled La cocina en el aire.[1] In the early 1950s, she developed the first cooking program for Mexican television, entitled El Menu de la Semana.[8] As with her radio program, El Menu de la Semana resulted in publications, namely a series of Tele-cocina booklets.

Her motto was "saber cocinar es la base de la economía" or "knowing how to cook is the basis of the economy".

Upon her death, her sisters attempted to carry on her legacy, but eventually the Velázquez de León Cooking Academy closed its doors and the rights to her books were sold.[1]

Many famous chefs have been influenced by Velázquez de León's work. It was Velázquez de León's documentation of regional cuisines that first inspired Diana Kennedy to travel around Mexico documenting traditional recipes.[9] Rick Bayless was similarly inspired by Velázquez de León's work stating that Velázquez de León "gave a national face to regional Mexican cuisine. She carried a banner that said, ‘We’re all Mexican: Veracruz Mexican, Oaxacan Mexican, Yucatecan Mexican.'”[10]

Many notable libraries with Mexican gastronomy collections hold Velázquez de León's works. Among these collections are the Fundación Herdez “Josefina Velázquez de León” collection,[11] and The University of Texas at San Antonio Libraries Special Collections Mexican Cookbook Collection.[5]

• Josefina Velázquez de León bibliography

• Velázquez de León, Josefina (1946). Platillos regionales de la República Mexicana. Mexico City: Ediciones J. Velázquez de León.
• Velázquez de León, Josefina (1947). Mexican cook book devoted to the American homes: recipes of Mexican cookery of each region of the Mexican country, adopting its ingredients, to the elements that can be substituted in the northern part of the United States, Central Republic and South America, written in two languages: English and Spanish. Mexico City: Escuela de Cocina "Velázquez de León", 68 Abraham Gonzalez Street.