Maria Elisa Christie is Program Director for Women in International Development at Virginia Tech's Office of International Research, Education, and Development.

INTRODUCTION
1

POINTS OF DEPARTURE
27

PART ONE Women of the Circle
43

Short on Days to Celebrate Our Fiestas
47

Not Letting the City Eat This Town Up
92

Here Mangos Used to Be Like Gold
135

PART TWO Kitchenspace Narratives
151

You Have to Be Ingenious in the Kitchen
155

5 Women of Xochimilco It Is Better for the Pots to Awaken Upside Down
179

We Used to Have a Lot of Pigs
206

FOOD FOR THOUGHT 232

Notes 267

Glossary
277

Bibliography
283

This book makes an important addition to the emerging feminist literature on culinary labour.... Christie has conveyed an invaluable perspective on society, ecology and even cosmology through the words of hardworking Mexican women. (Jeffrey M. Pilcher, University of Minnesota Journal of Latin American Studies2009-01-00)

This beautifully written book focuses on women's experiences in kitchenspace, an understudied social space in Mexico and throughout the world. Turning the pages of the book, I felt as if I were savoring a creation. . . . The book documents the creative ways in which women deal with poverty and tears in family and community bonds in the context of migration and globalization. Like artists, the women in this book use objects and symbols to tell us to pay attention to the role of food in social life; their words and experiences have the effect of reminding us of important understandings we have mislaid or forgotten. (Christine Eber, Associate Professor of Anthropology, New Mexico State University)