Rick Martínez begins with a simple idea: turning chiles into salsa. From there, he traces a personal journey from his roots in South Texas — with a “Salsa Tejana” seasoned with roasted peach, habanero and pecans — to the depth and flavor of México, where “Salsa Macha” is made with peanuts, guajillo and chile de árbol.
Martínez didn’t grow up speaking Spanish or living in México but he was deeply shaped by its influence. In the stews and tamales his Mexican American mother prepared, and in the sound of his grandfather’s mariachi songs that accompanied his childhood. Even so, for years he was made to feel he wasn’t Mexican enough, that he didn’t belong anywhere — not in Texas, not in professional kitchens, nor within the world of cooking “real” Mexican food.
In his latest book, “Salsa Daddy: A Cookbook: Dip Your Way into Mexican Cooking,” Martínez shows that being Mexican lives in the blood, in traditions and in memory. He guides readers through eight chapters that explore the universe of salsas.
At the recent Tucson Festival of Books, Martínez joined John Birdsall, for a culinary panel celebrating salsas as a lively centerpiece for every meal. Birdsall is a local James Beard Award-winning author focused on the intersection of food and queerness. Martínez also joined food and culture writers Adán Medrano and Sean Sherman at the Pima County Library’s Nuestras Raíces Stage for a conversation about how their lives and traditions influence their cooking.
Here’s more about Martínez’s latest book and two other authors who appeared at the festival, all whose works remind us that books can also be experienced through flavor and heritage.
Alana Yazzie’s kitchen unfolds an array of ancestral recipes from Diné cuisine — drinks, breads, breakfasts, soups, main dishes, sides and desserts — where each preparation suggests that Indigenous tradition is not static, but an open territory for new possibilities.
With “The Modern Navajo Kitchen: Homestyle Recipes That Celebrate the Flavors and Traditions of the Diné,” Yazzie offers a culinary journey that bridges memory and modernity. Accompanied by carefully curated photographs, the book weaves together traditional Navajo recipes with international influences reinterpreted from a Native perspective.
For Medrano, the traces of communities such as the Coahuiltecans, Karankawas and Apaches reveal the earliest roots of a culinary history that would shape Tex-Mex cuisine.
In “The Texas Mexican Plant-Based Cookbook,” he pays tribute to that legacy through a plant-based cuisine that connects past and present at the everyday table. The author and chef, a descendant of Coahuiltecans, has dedicated his life to documenting culinary practices and the stories that sustain them. His book delves into archaeological studies in Texas and northeastern Mexico to describe an ancestral gastronomy.
Salsa as language: tradition, flavor and memory
With “Salsa Daddy: A Cookbook: Dip Your Way into Mexican Cooking,” Martínez takes us into the world of traditional and modern salsas, where a vibrant salsa bandera can dress a plate of taquitos ahogados, or a creamy roasted salsa can add the perfect touch to a main dish. Not to mention the flavors of chiles with cashews over fried eggs resting on a bed of avocado atop toasted bread.
Across nearly 300 hardcover pages, Martínez’s book brings together more than 70 salsa recipes and 24 accessible dishes, all presented with vibrant images that add style and personality.
Named one of the best cookbooks of the year by The Washington Post, it shows how tortilla chips and salsas can bring joy. Salsa becomes an irresistible dip, a flavor-packed condiment or the base of iconic Mexican dishes such as tacos, tostadas and quesadillas — always crowned with a delicious sauce.
The author, winner of the 2023 James Beard Award for Best International Cookbook and author of the New York Times bestseller “Mi Cocina: Recipes and Rapture from My Kitchen in México,” dives deep into the world of traditional and modern salsas, mapping a rich culinary journey.
Navajo heritage, reimagined in the kitchen
In “The Modern Navajo Kitchen,” Yazzie presents a range of recipes that blend traditional ingredients with contemporary touches — from Navajo milk tea boba (Abe’ Boba Dééhk’azí) to classic frybread (Dah Díníilghaazh), Navajo burgers that reinvent the everyday, and Greek yogurt pops with sumac and strawberry that refresh with an unexpected twist. Each recipe moves between the familiar and the new without losing its roots.
Yazzie is also the creator of “The Fancy Navajo,” a website where she combines food and lifestyle. From Phoenix, this Diné/Navajo woman shares a contemporary perspective on her culture, shaped by her roots in northwestern New Mexico and her life in the desert.
Her work goes beyond recipes — it’s a narrative that includes fashion, gardening and lifestyle habits, all grounded in her Navajo heritage. At the center is her kitchen, where she develops accessible, innovative dishes using Indigenous and Southwestern ingredients, reinterpreting tradition while embracing its essence.
Recipes, ancestors and plant-based cooking
In “The Texas Mexican Plant-Based Cookbook,” his most recent work, Medrano pays tribute to memory, tradition and the knowledge of a plant-based cuisine deeply rooted in the life of contemporary Tex-Mex communities.
Each of the 90 kitchen-tested recipes offers precise instructions designed for today’s cook, accompanied by notes that place dishes within regional culinary traditions and its role in shaping community meaning.
Throughout the book, readers discover the origins of emblematic ingredients — such as squash, cactus, mesquite and sunflowers — alongside others introduced after the Spanish Conquest, like watermelon and cauliflower.
For more than two decades, Medrano traveled and worked across Latin America, Europe and Asia, gaining a deep understanding of the central role food and culinary traditions play in social life. His book “Truly Texas Mexican” was a finalist for Book of the Year by Foreword Reviews.In addition to his work as an author, Medrano directs the editorial series Indigenous Foodways of Texas and Northern Mexico for Texas Tech University Press and leads the Texas Indigenous Food Project, an organization dedicated to preserving and sharing these culinary traditions.
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