WHY ARE WE DOING THIS?
According to the last report given by the Mexican Ministry of the Interior in January of 2020, there are 61,637 missing people in Mexico, all of them victims of enforced disappearance. This is the reason why this subject has become especially important in the country and internationally. The failure of the Mexican authorities to implement successful policies to fight crime and the lack of willingness from part of the local and federal governments to locate victims are the result of the arising of civilian organizations, mostly built by women; they aim to locate the victims. These tracing groups have combed the areas looking for human remains and at the same time successfully but unfortunately they have found lots of clandestine graves. Cooking has become a ritual that allows them to keep memory alive, preventing the victims to fall into oblivion. The act of preparing the desaparecidos favorite dishes brings up the universal ritual of gathering around food; sharing intimacy, oral memories, traditions and history. Gathering around the table as a way of building our own identity. The awakening of the senses as a guide to travel through our memories. The Memory Recipe Book aims to evoke, for example, Yolanda´s pork pozole as an excuse to talk about the relationship between she and Roberto, her disappeared son. This book is about cooking as a way of remembering and to keep that love alive.
WHAT IS OUR PROJECT?
The Memory Recipe Book is a project that aims to honor all the women who are searching for their missing relatives. We want to bring to the table this complex issue; to talk about enforced disappearance and embrace these women's struggles as a collective matter.
OUR GOALS
The Memory Recipe Book goals are:
• To collect recipes that allow us to keep alive the memory of those who are no longer with us.
• To build bridges between different realities.
• To raise funds that can be used by these tracing groups to continue in their search for truth and justice.
