Digitized Mexican Cookbooks from the UT San Antonio Libraries Special Collections

ByUTSA Special Collections

Did you know? UT San Antonio Libraries has been digitizing historic cookbooks from its vast Mexican Cookbook Collection for nearly 15 years! 

Click here to view the Mexican Cookbook Collection Digital Collections website.


To increase access to the collection, Special Collections has been busy digitizing items from the collection. While only a fraction of the collection is digitized, the team is dedicated to an ongoing effort to expand access to these resources online.

Cover of La Cocina en el Bolsillo no. 9. Features an illustration of a woman in a kitchen.
La cocina en el bolsillo numero 9
Title page of Cocina Michoacana. Decorative illustration of foods surrounding the title.
Vicenta Torres de Rubio. Cocina Michoacana. 1898
Title page of El Cocinero Mexicano.
El cocinero mexicano, tomo I. 1831
Page from an 1888 manuscript Mexican cookbook with cutouts of a young woman and bird pasted on the page and the words "Recetas que escribio de mi madra"
Recetas que escribio mi madre. 1888
Cover of the book Especialidades Mexicanos con Maiz by Josefina Velazquez de Leon. Shows background of a corn field and two plates with corn cobs and tamales.
Josefina Velazquez de Leon. Especialidades Mexicanos con Maiz. 1956


Digital Collection Highlights

  • Over 170 Mexican cookbooks digitized and online (as of April 2026)
  • Manuscript hand-written recipe books spanning the 18th- 20th centuries.
  • 19th century cookbooks published in Mexico, including the first cookbook published in Mexico from 1831, El Cocinero Mexicano
  • La Cocina en el Bolsillo, a series of pocket cookbooks from the 1890s. Two of the issues’ covers were illustrated by José Guadalupe Posada.
  • Cookbooks by Josefina Velázquez de León

How to Access
You can browse or search the digitized cookbooks on the UTSA Libraries Digital Collections website and read/download them for free. Check the site often, as more cookbooks are being digitized and uploaded frequently!

Blue box that contains the logo of Texas grocery store chain H-E-B with the tagline "Helping Here." Additional text reads "Digitization of the Mexican Cookbook Collection is made possible in part through the generous support of H-E-B."

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