skillet
Object Details
- Description
- Metal comal, or skillet, used for cooking tortillas and toasting nuts and seeds. Thin round silver colored skillet with two handles. Thin rectangular handles protrude out from two sides of the skillet. Skillet scratched and silver plate missing in some areas due to use.
- Cook and author Sandra Gutierrez is at heart a culinary educator. Gutierrez was born in the U.S. in Philadelphia, but raised in Guatemala, where she attended an American school that brought Guatemalan and U.S. cultural practices together.
- Gutierrez’ life was not defined by two distinct cultures, but by a single culture that shared the traditions of Guatemala and the U.S. “Food at home was also a reflection of my fused reality: we ate tamales for special occasions. . . . and Carolina hot dogs every chance we got,” she explains in her cookbook, “The New Southern Latino Table.”
- As an adult, Gutierrez and her husband, Louis Gutierrez, moved to the U.S., eventually settling in Durham, North Carolina. There in the American South, Gutierrez learned about Southern food traditions from her neighbors and in turn taught them about diverse Latin cuisines. It was while living in the South that she began to take note of the culinary movement that combines regional Southern and Latin American foodways and which now lies at the center of her culinary career. She notes in her cookbook that the regional cuisines of Latin America and the Southern United States share many ingredients and cooking techniques in common: ingredients like tomatoes, corn, pork, beans, sugar, potatoes and key techniques like barbecuing, braising, roasting and deep frying.
- Culinary writing is one of the many ways Gutierrez builds interpersonal relationships. Inviting people into her family’s inner sanctum, she also hosts cooking classes in her home. In her kitchen, where ceramics from Guatemala share counter space with antique Jell-O molds found in Southern antique shops, Gutierrez shares her migration story and passion for food cultures.
- Credit Line
- Gift of Sandra Guiterrez
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History
- date made
- ca. 1970
- ID Number
- 2018.0039.01
- accession number
- 2018.0039
- catalog number
- 2018.0039.01
- Object Name
- skillet
- Physical Description
- metal (overall material)
- Measurements
- overall: 1 1/16 in x 11 13/16 in x 10 1/4 in; 2.69875 cm x 30.00375 cm x 26.035 cm
- place made
- Guatemala
- Associated Place
- Guatemala
- See more items in
- Home and Community Life: Domestic Life
- Food
- Exhibition
- Food: Transforming the American Table
- Exhibition Location
- National Museum of American History
- Subject
- Cooking
- Latino
- Record ID
- nmah_1877893
