Fabiola Cabeza de Baca Gilbert

The Good Life. New Mexican Food.

Santa Fé: Santa Fe. San Vincente Foundation, Inc., 1949. First Edition. First Printing. Rare. Hardcover with DJ. Very Good.
9 x 6 inches. 94 pp.
Yellow paper-covered boards with red endpapers. Original rich ocher dust jacket with the full title in black on the front cover and the red Zia sun symbol. A Foundational New Mexican Cookbook in the Original Dust Jacket
Fabiola Cabeza de Baca Gilbert
The Good Life: New Mexican Food. 1949.
New York: The New American Library, 1949. First edition.
9 x 6 inches. 94 pp.
Yellow paper-covered boards with red endpapers. Original rich ocher dust jacket with the full title in black on the front cover and the red Zia sun symbol.
Very Good.
First published in 1949, The Good Life is one of the earliest and most important books devoted specifically to New Mexican cuisine as its own distinct regional tradition. Fabiola Cabeza de Baca Gilbert was a key figure in the preservation of New Mexican foodways, working as a Home Demonstration Agent and later with the WPA, where she documented Hispano and Indigenous cooking practices at a time when they were often overlooked. Rather than presenting restaurant-style adaptations, the book records everyday home cooking, local ingredients, and long-established methods, treating New Mexican food as a living cultural tradition rather than a novelty.
The book is in Very Good condition with a small damp stain at the bottom of the spine. The interior is Fine, with clean, crisp pages and bright red endpapers. The dust jacket shows wear including fading and weathering to the spine, minor staining to the rear panel, chipping and tearing along the top edge, and a loss of approximately one and a half inches at the lower front panel. Very Good. Item #2

Price: $600.00