Diana Kennedy facts for kids

Quick facts for kids Diana Kennedy MBE
Kennedy in 2016
Born	Diana Southwood (1923-03-03)3 March 1923 Loughton, Essex, England
Died	24 July 2022(2022-07-24) (aged 99) Zitácuaro, Michoacán, Mexico
Occupation	Author, researcher and cook
Genre	Cookbooks
Subject	Mexican cuisine
Years active	1967–2022
Notable awards	Order of the Aztec Eagle, Order of the British Empire
Spouse	Paul P. Kennedy ​ (died 1967)​

Diana Kennedy (born Diana Southwood; 3 March 1923 – 24 July 2022) was a famous British food writer. She was the top English-language expert on Mexican cuisine. Diana Kennedy was known for her nine books about Mexican food. Her most famous book, The Cuisines of Mexico, changed how people in America thought about Mexican food.

Her cookbooks are based on over 50 years of travel in Mexico. She interviewed and learned from many different cooks across almost every part of the country. She carefully wrote down information about native edible plants. This information has been saved digitally by Mexico's National Commission for Knowledge and Use of Biodiversity. Because of her detailed work, people called Kennedy a "culinary anthropologist." This means she studied food like a scientist studies cultures. She even called herself an "ethno-gastronomer," which means someone who studies the food customs of different groups.

Diana Kennedy received many awards for her work. These include the Order of the Aztec Eagle from the Mexican government. She was also made a Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) by the British government.

Early Life and Adventures

Diana Southwood was born in Loughton, England, on March 3, 1923. Her father was a salesman, and her mother was a schoolteacher who loved nature.

She went to South Hampstead High School. Because of World War II, she did not go to university. Instead, at age 19, she joined the Women's Timber Corps. This group took over forestry jobs from men who were fighting in the war. Diana didn't like cutting trees, so she measured tree trunks instead.

In 1953, Kennedy moved to Canada. She lived there for three years and had several jobs. These included running a film library and selling Wedgewood china.

Meeting Her Husband and Moving to Mexico

In 1957, Diana decided to visit Haiti. There, she met Paul P. Kennedy, a reporter for The New York Times. He reported from Mexico, Central America, and the Caribbean. Diana and Paul moved to Mexico in 1957. They later married and stayed together until Paul died in 1967.

In Mexico, Diana fell in love with the food. She decided to spend her life saving and sharing traditional Mexican recipes. Even though she lived in Mexico, she kept her British accent and drank tea every day. When she wasn't teaching, she was writing or cooking new recipes. She was known for being direct and strong-willed.

Traveling for Food Research

Diana Kennedy traveled to every state in Mexico. She used many types of transportation, from buses to donkeys and even her own Nissan pickup truck. She went to many faraway places to visit markets and talk to cooks. She asked them about ingredients and cooking methods.

In the 1970s, she built her home near Zitácuaro, Michoacán. This area had many orchards, which allowed her to grow her own ingredients. She believed in writing notes for recipes instead of using electronic cookbooks.

Diana Kennedy passed away at her home on July 24, 2022. She was 99 years old.

Discovering Mexican Cuisine

When Diana first lived in Mexico City in the late 1950s, she quickly learned something important. The best food in Mexico was not in fancy restaurants. It was found in markets, small family restaurants called "fondas," and in people's homes. She was very impressed by the local, traditional markets.

She also learned that recipes changed from one region to another. She traveled with her husband when he was working. He would even collect recipes for her when she couldn't go with him. In Mexico City, she asked friends about cooking Mexican dishes. They often sent her to their housekeepers, who then invited her to visit their villages. Diana continued to visit these villages to learn more.

Kennedy also started looking into old documents about Mexican food. She admired Josefina Velázquez de León, who had also collected recipes by visiting church groups. Diana's main goal became to find and save recipes that were not written down. These were often found in villages, markets, and homes. She wanted to protect native ingredients and traditional recipes that were being lost as people moved to cities.

Sharing Her Knowledge

Diana began sharing what she learned with her husband's friends and other foreigners. She even gave tours of traditional markets. She showed them stands with interesting foods, which sometimes surprised Americans.

Once, a food writer from The New York Times, Craig Claiborne, visited. Diana tried to give him a book of Mexican recipes. He told her, "I'll only read a Mexican cookbook once you have written one." At the time, Diana thought this was a funny idea.

Teaching and Writing Cookbooks

In late 1965, Diana and her husband moved to New York City. Her husband died there the next year. In 1969, with encouragement from Craig Claiborne, Diana started teaching Mexican cooking classes in her apartment. This was the start of her long teaching career. She taught on her own and with schools like the Peter Kump Cooking School. She also offered special cooking "boot camps" at her home in Michoacán.

Her classes focused on old-fashioned cooking methods and ingredients. For example, most Mexican cooks today use pre-ground corn flour. But Diana insisted on teaching students how to soak corn kernels overnight, remove the skins, and grind them to make fresh corn dough, called masa.

Writing Her First Book

Her cooking classes led to her first cookbook. Craig Claiborne supported her work with Mexican cooking. Diana had no experience writing books. But after Fran McCullough, an editor at Harper and Row, took one of her classes, she offered to help Diana. They worked together on Diana's first five books.

To finish her first book, Diana went back to Mexico for more research. She believed this research made her books special. She took the time to explore Mexico and study how the food changed from place to place. She rewrote the book many times. The result was The Cuisines of Mexico, published in 1972.

This book became a huge success. It is still one of the most important books on Mexican cooking. It helped Americans understand that Mexican food was more than just "Tex-Mex." It showed them the many different regional foods and dishes. The updated version of the book from 1986 is still available today.

More Books and Research

Diana Kennedy later published eight more books about Mexican cooking. Many of them were translated into Spanish. She learned a lot from Josefina Velázquez de León's work. She also said that English cookbook author Elizabeth David influenced her writing style.

Diana didn't see herself as just a writer. She saw herself as someone who wrote down what she saw during 50 years of traveling in Mexico. She visited remote areas and talked to all kinds of cooks. She paid for her own research and travels, often sleeping in her old Nissan truck.

She preferred the food from central and southern Mexico because it was more complex and varied. She recorded many different edible plants. Her books even included unusual recipes using things like brains, iguanas, insects, and even whole animals. She often interviewed and cooked with rural cooks who made food for their families. She even worked in a bakery in Mexico City to learn how to bake. Her books focus on traditional home cooking, especially dishes made with corn dough. She even wrote a whole book about tortillas. Her detailed research makes her books unique, filled with stories about food and her travels.

Her work made her a top expert on Mexican cuisine. She understood not only the real ingredients and methods but also how some ingredients were being lost. She said, "I write oral history that is disappearing with climate change, agribusiness, and loss of cultivated lands." She believed people used to care more about what they ate and where it came from.

Global Influence

Besides traveling in Mexico, Diana often traveled abroad, especially to the United States. There, she taught classes and spoke about Mexican food. She even had a 26-part TV show on Mexican cooking for The Learning Channel. She greatly influenced Mexican cooking in the United States and inspired chefs like Rick Bayless.

However, Diana often disagreed with chefs who didn't do their own research in Mexico. She criticized those who wasted food or used too much plastic. She also didn't like food writers who didn't live in Mexico but questioned her knowledge. Despite some disagreements, she always gave credit to the people who shared their understanding of Mexican regional foods with her.

Her influence was also very strong in Mexico. She received many awards there, including the Order of the Aztec Eagle. This is the highest honor Mexico gives to people from other countries. The National Commission for Knowledge and Use of Biodiversity (CONABIO) has put her research online. This includes a large collection of recipes, drawings, and notes about cooking and native edible plants.

Quinta Diana: Her Eco-Friendly Home

In 1976, Diana Kennedy moved back to Mexico for good. In 1980, she moved to eastern Michoacán, about three hours west of Mexico City. She bought land near a small village called San Francisco Coatepec de Morelos. She named her property "Quinta Diana."

Her home was on a forested hill at the end of a long dirt road. Only trucks or four-wheel drive vehicles could reach it. But this didn't stop many visitors from coming to her home.

Living Green

Quinta Diana was built to be very eco-friendly. In her 1998 book My Mexico, she said she wanted a house made of local materials. She wanted to live like her neighbors. Her nearly three-hectare property was almost "off the grid," meaning it produced most of its own power. Her adobe home was built around a huge boulder that she decided to leave in place. The house had an open living room with stairs leading to different areas.

In her home, she tested recipes based on the seasons and what was growing on her land. She had an outdoor cooking area with wood-fired grills and adobe ovens. Her indoor kitchen, which she called her "laboratory," had a long, tiled counter with gas burners. This kitchen was full of ingredients, copper pots, herbs, dried chili peppers, and her own homemade condiments.

Diana grew much of her own food organically. She had a greenhouse for herbs and even coffee. Her gardens had grapefruit, apricot, and fig trees, plus chayote vines. She used manure as fertilizer. All the water used on the property came from tanks that collected rainwater and filtered wastewater. Most of her energy came from solar power.

Since 1980, money from her books and talks helped pay for her property. Diana also started the Diana Kennedy Foundation. This foundation works on projects about the environment and food. She believed that when the environment is harmed, foods disappear. She was against using genetically modified seeds, too much packaging, and harsh chemicals. The Foundation also aims to protect Mexico's food history and Quinta Diana itself. It holds her large collection of Mexican cookbooks, other publications, and pottery.

Awards and Recognition

Diana Kennedy was often called the "grand dame of Mexican cooking." People compared her to Julia Child in the United States and Elizabeth David in the UK. She was also called a "dogged, obsessive pop anthropologist." She was flattered by the comparison to Julia Child, who promoted French cuisine, but she didn't fully agree with it.

She was well-known among food lovers in the United States for many years. But she didn't get much attention in her home country of England until 2002. That year, Prince Charles visited Quinta Diana. He ate with her and made her a Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE). This was for helping cultural relations between the UK and Mexico.

Here are some of her important awards:

• 1981: Decorated with The Order of the Aztec Eagle by the Mexican Government.
• 2002: Appointed a Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) by the British Government.
• 2011: James Beard Foundation Award—Cookbook of the Year for Oaxaca al Gusto.
• 2014: James Beard Cookbook Hall of Fame.

See also

In Spanish: Diana Kennedy para niños