Guest Article:
How to Cook an Armadillo
By Shirley Collins

Collectors often find their most cherished acquisitions in unexpected places. My collection of community, church, and ethnic cookbooks gained one of its best additions through Floresta.

Several years ago while I was researching a project on microcredit for women in devel-oping countries, I became aware of Floresta through the Rev. Charles Boss, a retired United Methodist minister in Encinitas. Contacting Karmyn Laverghetta at Floresta¹s headquarters, I learned of Floresta¹s reforestation projects in the Dominican Republic, Haiti, and Oaxaca, Mexico, and how lives were being changed with the help of small loans and training in sustainable agriculture. A friendship by telephone grew.

Over lunch in a favorite Mexican restaurant, Karmyn and I met for the first time, exchanging resources and talking about special interests. It was then that Karmyn mentioned that a Floresta supporter had just brought back from Oaxaca about 20 regional cookbooks to be sold through the office.

Then and there I acquired a totally charming ­ and very special ­ addition to my cookbook collection: Maria¹s Culinary Secrets: Zapotec Cookery from Southern Mexico by Maria Villalobos Villalobos. (Maria had learned to read at age 9 through Wycliffe Bible Translators and learned to cook from her mother and grandmother while working for the American "gringas.")

Recently as I browsed through this little gem with its mostly-for-American-kitchens recipes such as the standard directions for enchiladas, mole sauce, and Zapotec tamales (rolled in banana leaves, rather than in cornhusks) I came upon one of the most unusual recipes I¹d ever seen: "Fried Armadillo." Here in the book were the complete instructions!

The cookbook, lovingly compiled and illustrated with beautiful photographs and pen-and-ink sketches is now on sale ($15 plus shipping) at the Floresta headquarters as a fund-raising project, just in time for Christmas. Get them while they last.