The University of Arizona Press
Date: Wednesday, September 9, 2026
Time: 5:30-7:30 p.m., MST
Place: Special Collections, University of Arizona Main Library, 1510 E. University Blvd., Tucson
Tickets: Free, but RSVP is required
The connection between the history of Tucson’s foodways and the role that libraries and archives play in inspiring, preserving and making accessible culinary traditions is a powerful one. The panel discussion features:
Melani “Mele” Martinez, author of The Molino: A Memoir
Don Guerra, Founder and Head Baker, Barrio Bread
Amy R. Juan, Interim Director, Tohono O’odham Community Agriculture
Feng-Feng Yeh, Chef and Multi-disciplinary Artist
The panel will be moderated by Gary Paul Nabhan, Founder, Sacred Plant Recovery Initiative, and author of Sonoran Desert Bestiary .
Join the University of Arizona Libraries Special Collections to celebrate the opening of the De Manteles Largos exhibition with a panel discussion about the importance of food, history, identity, traditions and community. This event is free and open to the public, RSVP is required.
About The Molino:
Set in one of Tucson’s first tamal and tortilla factories, The Molino is a hybrid memoir that reckons with one family’s loss of home, food, and faith.
Weaving together history, culture, and Mexican food traditions, Melani Martinez shares the story of her family’s life and work in the heart of their downtown eatery, El Rapido. Opened by Martinez’s great-grandfather, Aurelio Perez, in 1933, El Rapido served tamales and burritos to residents and visitors to Tucson’s historic Barrio Presidio for nearly seventy years. For the family, the factory that bound them together was known for the giant corn grinder churning behind the scenes—the molino. With clear eyes and warm humor, Martinez documents the work required to prepare food for others, and explores the heartbreaking aftermath of gentrification that forces the multigenerational family business to close its doors.
About Sonoran Desert Bestiary:
The Sonoran Desert has many marvelous and well-known creatures such as the javelina and the coyote, often found on postcards and lawn ornaments. But what about the lesser-known creatures—the ones that are underfoot yet unseen, that lurk only in the shadows and in our imaginations? In this collection of essays, prose poems, and illustrations, naturalist Gary Paul Nabhan and artist Robert J. Long team up to celebrate these unsung beings of the Sonoran Desert.
This desert bestiary includes creatures whose existence lies largely in traditional story and belief, as well as creatures whose life cycles are so cryptic they seem mythic, such as the walking catfish and the carbunco. Positioned at the dynamic intersection of folklore and natural history, the book reflects on the reasons why human imaginations over the ages have reached into this realm of seldom seen but often intuited animals.
