Who Was Diana Kennedy?

Who Was Diana Kennedy?

Diana Kennedy was a British-born food writer and cook who devoted nearly her entire career to documenting Mexican regional cuisine. Born Diana Southwood on 3 March 1923 in Loughton, Essex, she died on 24 July 2022 at the age of 99 at her home near Zitácuaro, in the Mexican state of Michoacán.

Across nine books, she became the leading English-language authority on Mexican cooking, describing herself as an "ethno-gastronomer." Her work was honored in three countries: by the James Beard Foundation in the United States, with Mexico's Order of the Aztec Eagle in 1981, and with an MBE in Britain in 2002.

From England to Mexico

Kennedy joined the Women's Timber Corps at 19 during the Second World War, emigrated to Canada in 1953, and met New York Times correspondent Paul P. Kennedy in Haiti in 1957. The couple moved to Mexico that same year and later married; Paul's cancer treatment forced them back to New York in 1966, and he died the following year.

Fieldwork as a Method

What set Kennedy apart was the years of field research behind every recipe. Over five decades she crossed nearly every Mexican state by bus, donkey, and an old Nissan pickup, visiting markets and rural cooks to record traditional techniques and native edible plants — insisting, for instance, on hand-ground corn masa at a time when most cooks had switched to store-bought flour.

Quinta Diana and a Legacy of Recognition

She settled permanently in Michoacán in 1980 at an adobe, largely solar-powered homestead she called Quinta Diana, where she grew much of her own food. Encouraged by Craig Claiborne, her 1969 New York cooking classes led to her first book, The Cuisines of Mexico (1972), a bestseller still regarded as a landmark text. She went on to win the James Beard Foundation's Cookbook of the Year in 2011 and entry into its Cookbook Hall of Fame in 2014, and influenced chefs including Rick Bayless.