Sonoran Cuisine with Doña Matilda Santa Cruz and Folklorist Jim Griffith
This cultural immersion workshop explores traditions of Sonoran cooking in Doña Matilde Santa Cruz’s outdoor kitchen. Join Doña Matilde for a hands-on experience making traditional Sonoran dishes with cultural context from folklorist Jim Griffith on the transfer of foodways traditions and heritage in the borderlands.
Matilde Santa Cruz, of Imuris, Sonora, has participated in TMY for more than 30 years demonstrating her skills as an extraordinary home cook and expert maker of tortillas Sonorenses. She cooks for her family and for social events in her neighborhood of La Doce (South 12th Avenue). Several years ago realized her dream of setting up an outdoor kitchen space in her backyard. Her words describing the passing on of traditional knowledge became the title of a major survey exhibition at the UA Museum of Art, curated by Dr. Jim Griffith in 1995: “La cadena que no se corta.” The chain that never breaks.
“Big Jim” Griffith is a folklorist who has devoted his life to celebrating and honoring the folkways and of the borderlands. In 1974, Jim co-founded Tucson Meet Yourself, an annual festival celebrating Tucson’s ethic and cultural diversity. He served as director of the Southwest Folkore Center at the University of Arizona from 1979 to 1998. He is the author of several book on folk and religious art tradions in southern Arizona and northern Mexico, including Hecho a Mano: The Traditional Arts of Tucson’s Mexican American Community and Saints of the Southwest. Jim also hosted Southern Arizona Traditions, a television spot on KUAT-TV’s Arizona Illustrated program. Jim was named a National Heritage Fellow in 2011 by the National Endowment for the Arts.
Date: May 19, 2018 10:00 AM-2:00 PM
Location: Doña Matilde Santa Cruz’s outdoor kitchen | Tucson, AZ
Admission:
$60, lunch included
Event website: southwestfolklife.submittable.com
