Montezuma Publishing recently released “San Diego State University Collected Recipes: Showcasing Aztec Life,” a cookbook compiling the recipes of SDSU students, staff, faculty and alumni. It is available in the SDSU bookstore for $19.99 where 10 percent of the proceeds will go to the Jacobs & Cushman San Diego Food Bank.
The idea for the cookbook came from Publishing Manager at Montezuma Publishing Kim Mazyck.
“I thought it would be a fun way to bring the whole campus together, to do something unique,” she said. “I wanted to show who we are as Aztecs through what we eat.”
The book includes more than 200 recipes, mostly family favorites and personal recipes. There are even recipes from two famous alumni: Raquel Welch and Gregory Peck. Each page gives the ingredients, the steps to prepare the dish, and a small story telling why each person submitted that recipe. The resulting recipes are as diverse as the student population.
“We have such a variety,” Mazyck said. “There are Southern recipes, European sort of Mediterranean recipes.”
The recipe book also serves as a historical document, not only including recipes from older SDSU alumni but excerpts from older cookbooks published by SDSU with recipes from students. The older cookbooks are from the ‘50s to the ‘80s.
“What I found interesting is that in the ‘50s, people were cooking everything,” Mazyck said. “There were no processed foods, people couldn’t get anything in a can. So the cooking was very fresh. Then, as you go through the ‘60s and ‘70s, more processed foods come about. You start to see gelatin put in recipes. They were really big on putting things in molds. Later, in the ‘80s, things were microwaved first or you put the whole thing in the microwave.”
Every book also includes a lifetime access code to a digital edition of the cookbook.
“You can pull up the entire recipe book on your tablet,” Mazyck said. “And it gives you the ability to highlight. If you decide you want to alter a recipe, you can make your own notations. You can also search if you want to look for specific ingredients.”
Associate Director of Aztec Shops Ben Eisenstein helped to promote the book and get the word out to have people submit their recipes.
“I think anybody that is interested in SDSU, or in cooking, that this would be the book for you,” he said. “It is also just a beautiful thing to look at.”
He highlighted the work the visual designers did on it, and spoke about how it is a fitting gift for the holidays.
“If you are going home for the holidays you can try out some of these recipes where they really belong to Aztecs,” he said. “They really are from students, from faculty. It would be a fun thing to try out.”
