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In the introduction to her fifth book, Latinísimo: Home Recipes from the Twenty-One Countries of Latin America, Sandra A. Gutierrez describes Latin American food as a “large house.” “The front door is Mexican food, because it is the most recognized of all Latin American cuisines…However, step further into the house, and ah…! There are twenty other kitchens inside. Each one is as delicious as the next, and each one is different from the rest.” Born in Philadelphia to Guatemalan parents, Gutierrez’s appreciation of Latin American cooking is the product of thirty years of ongoing research, conversations, and close observations of every kitchen she entered, from the homes of diplomats and ambassadors she visited during her childhood in Guatemala to her work as a renowned scholar and cookbook chronicler of Pan-Latin foodways. Even when COVID shut down her plans for a 23-city research trip, she connected remotely with chefs, cooks, and anyone who would talk to her about their favorite recipes. “I found that people loved to talk about their memories of food,” Gutierrez told me from her home in Cary, North Carolina, “especially those foods that represent comfort, or a memory
