Mexican Food Popularized in U.S. by Elena Zelayeta

The Mexican influence on popular American cuisine dates to the 1920s and ‘30s. One of the leaders in introducing these recipes to the public was Elena Zelayeta (1898-1974), a young Mexican woman who became a great cook. During the Depression of the 1930s, she supported her family by running a small restaurant in San Francisco.

Zelayeta suffered scarlet fever as a baby and had limited vision in one eye. While running the restaurant she lost vision in the other eye, becoming blind.  This was a definite setback, but eventually Zelayeta overcame her frustration and her terror of living without sight. She went on to write successful cookbooks, become a consultant to major national food companies, and receive positive acclaim from such luminaries as James Beard and the New York Times food critic Craig Claiborne. 

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Early Life

Elena Zelayeta was born in 1898 in Mexico City.  Her parents were both Spanish and emigrated to Mexico before starting their family. Her father hoped to go to America but stayed in Mexico because of language familiarity. The couple settled in a mining town near Mexico City, El Mineral del Oro, where they opened a restaurant. As the success of the restaurant grew, they added an inn to their property. Elena and her five siblings were born there.

Life in Mexico was not always comfortable. Though Mexico won independence from Spain in 1821, the family found themselves treated as outsiders. On Independence Day, it was not unusual for Mexican natives to parade through town shouting “Down with Spaniards.” Elena’s father kept hoping there would be a way to go to the United States where he felt there would be more opportunity.

When Elena was 11 (1910), her father leased the restaurant and inn for a brief time so he could take his family to visit America. They traveled by ship to San Francisco. In the midst of their visit, the Mexican Revolution broke out. As Elena’s father nervously worried about things at home, they soon received word that all they had in Mineral del’Oro was destroyed. There was nothing to go back for.

Starting Out in America

Elena’s parents sold her mother’s jewelry to cover their expenses, and they enrolled their children in public school in San Francisco. Elena was the only family member who spoke English, so she became the family translator. This meant that whenever her father needed to go job hunting, he pulled Elena out of school so she could accompany him to translate.  

Over time, her father picked up regular work, and the family settled in. Their father was very strict with his daughters about dating. Generally, he preferred they go out with a group, and he let them know that he wanted them to marry Americans—not Spaniards or Mexicans. 

Despite that, Elena fell in love with Lorenzo Zelayeta, a structural engineer for the Bell Company, she and Loren kept their dating a secret as Elena knew her father would be upset about Loren’s Mexican heritage.

Marriage Anyway

But Lorenzo Zelayeta was doing well at work and was placed on a big job that would take him away from San Francisco for several months. He and Elena were determined to marry before he left the following week. In a single day, they shared the news with the family and held a simple wedding.

As a young wife, Elena set about learning to cook and be a good homemaker. But since she had attended a business school after high school, she had other skills. Her husband was away and there were not yet any children. When she was offered a secretarial job at the California Arms Company (a munitions company), she accepted.

She did well in her job, and when her bosses discovered she was bilingual, the company started using her to travel to Mexico to actually negotiate arms deals—an extremely dangerous job.

The 1930s and the Depression

But as the country moved into the early 1930s, businesses had to lay off workers, and both Elena and Loren were let go from their jobs. By this time, they were parents of a young boy, Larry, who was born in 1926. 

They needed to figure out a way to live and to feed themselves. Most families were using a barter method to get what they needed, so when Elena thought about the skills she had, she realized she could prepare meals to trade for other things they needed.

During the Depression, bartering was not just one-on-one. People became skilled at bartering among groups so that everyone could give something but trade for what they really needed.

As Elena worked in her home kitchen preparing meals they could use in trade, she began to dream of starting a small restaurant in their apartment. Mexican food was not yet popular in the United States, but if they could attract enough of their friends and friends’ friends as customers, they would be fine.

Opens Restaurant in Apartment

Elena pulled everything together and opened her restaurant. Meals were well-priced but could also be paid for by barter. They soon found that their neighbors of other ethnicities were attracted to a place where they could barter for a meal, have great food, and feel warmly welcomed.

As the business grew, Elena shopped for a bigger apartment, finally settling on a seven-room apartment on the upper floor of an apartment building in the northern section of San Francisco. The family set aside 4 rooms for dining, and guests willingly climbed the staircase to what became known as Elena’s Mexican Village restaurant.

Elena remembered names and faces and birthdays, and people loved coming. To keep the restaurant going, Elena put in very long hours both in the kitchen and in minding the books.

And there was more news… she was pregnant with their second child. Son Larry was 8 at the time.

Trouble with Vision

But Elena’s eyes were giving her trouble. The cataract that had clouded her vision since infancy was getting worse, and she started having difficulty with the other eye. She told herself it was temporary, but as she began bumping into things and having trouble identifying guests, Loren asked about it. After Elena explained, Loren immediately set up an appointment with an ophthalmologist.

Unfortunately, the ophthalmologist told them there was nothing to be done. The retina in her better eye had detached. At that time, they had no guarantee of a way to fix it. (Later she consulted a doctor who felt there might be a way to improve her situation through surgery, but it failed.)

Sadness Led to Isolation

Elena was 7 months pregnant and fell into a dark depression. How could she run her restaurant? How could she take care of Larry and a new baby? She closed herself off in her bedroom and remained alone as much as she could. When she attempted suicide, she was stopped by Loren, but she saw no way for things to get better.

After the baby was born, Elena turned full care of Billy over to a helper. Larry often was the one assigned to bring his mother meals from the restaurant.

Loren and the cooks Elena hired to help when she was running the kitchen tried to keep the business going, but it wasn’t the same without Elena there to welcome guests, remember birthdays, and make the diners feel very much at home.

Crisis with Billy

Elena relied on hired help to take care of Larry and Billy. At one point, the family hired an older woman who was hard of hearing. One day Elena realized it was too quiet. Larry was at school, but she heard nothing from the sitter or from Billy. She left her room, feeling her way around the house, calling to the sitter.

There was no response from the woman, but she did find Billy. He was sitting on the floor in the kitchen with his hand in a container of lye. Lye in the mouth of a one-year-old would certainly have burned his throat and very likely killed him.

This was the moment when Elena realized everything had to change.

She fired the woman who was supposed to have been watching her children and called her mother for some temporary help. From there, she began figuring out how she could re-enter her life.

“A full belly makes a happy heart.”

Elena Zelayeta

Back in the Kitchen

By this time, the restaurant had closed. Without Elena’s charm, diners quit coming.  No money was coming in, so the family moved in with Loren’s mother.

Slowly, Elena taught herself to cook using her other senses. She judged heat from the burners by smell, and measured ingredients by feel. She needed a way to time her cooking and realized that the radio programs she enjoyed were all 15 minutes long. This became her way of timing what she cooked.

Her mother visited and helped her organize things so that Elena could find what she needed, Loren and Larry (and Billy when he grew older) were there when she needed to leave the house.

As the economy improved in the late 1930s, Loren Zelayeta was re-hired as a structural engineer by the West Coast Bell Laboratories.  And in 1944, Elena received a phone call from the San Francisco Center for the Blind. The organization wanted to hire her to teach cooking to other people with low vision or no sight.

Elena was concerned. She had never taught nor spoken before groups, but she took on the challenge. She wanted to share with others what she learned on her own. One of her good friends helped her think through the process and transported her and all her equipment to the Center’s offices.

The class was a wonderful success.

In Demand

As word spread that a woman who was blind was available to teach others to cook, Zelayeta began to be hired to teach and to lecture. Over time she became friendly with a woman, Katherine Kerry, who was to change Elena’s life. Kerry was a member of a group of home economists, and she invited Elena to come and visit the group and tell her story.

The other women loved all that they learned from Elena. While chatting with her, one of the women brought up how much she would benefit by having a seeing eye dog.

Zelayeta agreed, but she announced that the dogs were expensive. She would not have a dog until she could afford to buy it for herself. This gave the group a mission: If Elena Zelayeta would write a cookbook containing recipes for Mexican food, the California home economists would help sell it.

First Cookbook

Elena Zelayeta saw that this was a path forward. A friend pitched in to actually write down the recipes as Elena described them, and soon they had enough material for a 127-page recipe book. Recipes were carefully tested by the group and soon it was published.

After publication of Elena’s Famous Mexican and Spanish Recipes, the home economists continued their work. Various groups invited Elena to speak, and newsletters around the state promoted the cookbook. The first printing sold out within a single month.

Guide Dog

As Elena Zelayeta was hired for more speeches and sold more cookbooks, she had enough money for a guide dog. She and a friend took the train to Los Angeles, where Elena had made arrangements for a dog through the Guide Dog Foundation of Los Angeles.

After she was paired with her dog, which she named Chulita (“chula” means loved one), she remained on the campus in Los Angeles for the next two weeks so she and Chulita could learn to work together.

More to Overcome

Loren continued his work as an engineer, but the family had moved out of the center of San Francisco. This meant that Loren and a co-worker made a relatively long commute to and from the job. One evening near Thanksgiving, Loren did not arrive home on time. 

Elena was distressed and made frantic calls to the co-worker’s family, the hospital, and the state patrol. She was finally told that Loren’s car had been flipped over by a bus in a terrible accident. The friend lived, but Loren died. 

She and Billy, now 11, had to find a new way forward.

Summer Camp

Fortunately, Elena was known on the speaking circuit, and that summer she received a call from a government representative working for the state of Montana. The state was setting up a summer camp for people who were blind or had low vision. They wanted Elena to come and teach cooking. Billy, age 11, could come along, as could Chulita.

As she taught her class, the administrators saw how much she had to offer and convinced her to add a “lessons in living” class for the campers. She saw how helpful her suggestions could be. Within a couple of years she wrote a book on the topic.

Local Television Show

As she returned home after working at the camp, she was very much in demand. She had another cookbook out, and groups invited her for speeches and book signings.

In 1950, she was given a contract for a local television show.  A friend helped her organize and set up her kitchen at the studio.

The production staff worked with her so that Elena felt comfortable, and together they all agreed on a system to help Elena with camera angles. She had strings tied to each ankle so that someone could pull gently to let her know which camera was on at what time. 

Gained Prominence

As time progressed, Zelayeta gained national prominence. She became a consultant for Lawry’s seasoning salt and Quaker Oats. Famous cookbook author James Beard recommended her as a consultant for a new Mexican restaurant being planned for the Time Life Building in Rockefeller Center, La Fonda del Sol.

Frozen Food Market

When she returned home to California, friends had new ideas for her: Frozen foods were becoming popular. They wanted Elena to package and sell frozen versions of her enchiladas, tortillas, tacos, meatballs, and her very popular cocktail snack, tamalitos (small tamales).

Larry (and eventually Billy) joined her in the business. Larry was a natural salesman, and he went to work setting up a factory and purchasing machines that could help with some of the packaging. 

The business was doing well selling to small specialty shops. As word spread in the food industry that a small California company was selling frozen Mexican food and succeeding, larger companies stepped into the market. Their products may not have been as good, but they could entice stores by offering free freezer cases to groceries who bought from them.

Elena’s Food Specialties stayed in business selling to the local market, but it was never the financial success the family hoped.

Elena Zelayeta–Nationally Known

In the meantime, she was achieving acclaim. In 1953, June Nickerson of the New York Times described Elena Zelayata as “the West Coast dining authority.”

By 1958, food critic and editor Craig Claiborne at The New York Times wrote that “Elena’s Secrets of Mexican Cooking” was the definitive volume on the subject.

And of course, well-loved American chef James Beard valued her highly and sent jobs her way.

Long Life

Elena Zelayeta lived until the age of 75, dying in March of 1974. Larry married and had one daughter who was named Elena after his mother. 

On the cover of one of her books, the publishing company ran a tag line: “She was unable to see with her eyes but learned to see with her heart.”

Elena Zelayeta sometimes had to pause when the challenges became too severe. But she always found her way forward again.

She closes her first book with this:

May your tables be filled with bounty, your days with sunshine, your hearts with joy.

Elena Zelayeta, 1944

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