The University of Texas at San Antonio Libraries has been working to digitize the largest collection of historic Mexican cookbooks in the United States. The library is now releasing recipes from the collection in free e-books. The earliest book in the collection is from 1789, making it one of the oldest Mexican cookbooks in existence. This so-called “manuscript cookbook”—written by “Doña Ignacita,” who Noell believes was the kitchen manager of a well-off family—is a handwritten recipe collection in a notebook, complete with liquid stains, doodles, and pages that naturally fall open to the most-loved recipes.