it’s fun to eat
Elena Zelayeta and Elena’s Mexican Village
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In 1934, Elena Zelayeta ran one of the most successful restaurants in San Francisco — but after a fateful doctor’s appointment, the 36-year-old entrepreneur knew she was in danger of losing it all.
Elena first ran the restaurant, Elena’s Mexican Village, out of her apartment. She and her husband prepared orders of chiles rellenos, their Mexican family’s specialty, and served guests on folding tables. Within a few years, business boomed. They moved to an official location at a luxury hotel in downtown San Francisco, which Elena decorated with bright wall murals. The wait staff dressed in traditional Mexican costumes, and on Thursdays and Sundays, patrons were treated to a special dance performance: Elena herself, playing the castanets.
But a health crisis threatened to destroy everything Elena and her family had worked so hard to build. At 36 years old, Elena noticed her vision failing; when she visited the doctor, she got the stunning diagnosis: sudden retinal detachment. There was no cure, no corrective surgery. Just Elena’s new reality, and the adjustments she’d have to make to keep her life together.
Elena stepped away from day-to-day operations at Elena’s Mexican Village. But without their leader running the ship, the restaurant’s debs mounted higher and higher. And without her life at the restaurant, Elena spiraled into a deep depression. Later, she said she contemplated ending her life. But slowly, her faith helped her reclaim a sense of purpose:
I felt that blindness was something to hide, something to be ashamed of … at one time I cried out against His cruelty in taking away my sight. Now I thank Him for the happiness this blindness brought me.
Elena found her own way back to cooking. She retaught herself how to make a meal, this time relying on senses other than sight. She learned how small changes in smell could tell her exactly when sugar transformed into caramel. When she cracked open an egg, she could discern the white from the yolk by the texture she felt with her fingers. She relied on muscle memory — honed by decades of kitchen prep work — to recreate her famous chiles rellenos.
In the 1940s, Elena started writing cookbooks, which spread her recipes beyond the walls of the restaurant. Again, she found her own adaptations. Assistants typed as she dictated instructions for quesadillas, chilis and enchiladas. Friends stepped in to recipe test. Her very first cookbook, 1944’s Elena’s Famous Mexican And Spanish Recipes, sold half a million copies. Elena used the proceeds to purchase a much-needed guide dog.
San Franciscans delighted in seeing their beloved castanet dancer back in the spotlight after so much hardship. In 1950, A Bay Area TV network offered her a recurring show, appropriately titled “It’s Fun to Eat with Elena.” Her 11-year-old son came to set to assist, and crew members found ingenious ways to work with her disability. Assistants tied strings to her ankles and gently tugged right or left. Right indicated a small pivot to catch one camera angle, left the same but in the opposite direction.
Audiences loved Elena’s show for its “sense of personality and intimacy,” but many Americans also appreciated the portal she opened into the world of Mexican cooking. Her family recipes had once been derided as a “low-level party food,” but Elena’s books helped people appreciate Mexican “as a cuisine.”
In 1951, she founded a frozen meals business, Elena’s Food Specialties, that popularized her food across the country. She continued publishing cookbooks until her death in 1974.
More on 🌮:
Elena’s Favorite Mexican and Spanish Recipes, written by Elena Zelayeta
Tastemakers: Seven Immigrant Women Who Revolutionized Food in America, written by Mayukh Sen
Overlooked No More: Elena Zelayeta, Emissary for Mexican Cooking, The New York Times
Elena Zelayeta: Chef Who Brought Mexican Food to the American Masses, PBS
The Blind Chef Who Brought Mexican Food to the American Masses, KQED
Seven Immigrant Women Who Changed the Way Americans Eat, The New York Times