The Diana Kennedy Foundation has contributed $500,000 to UT San Antonio to support the long-term preservation and accessibility of the renowned Diana Kennedy Collection.
The three-year grant will fund conservation, digitization, faculty engagement and new research fellowships — expanding the impact of Kennedy’s lifelong work documenting Mexico’s diverse cuisines.
“This is probably the largest gift the Foundation will ever make,” said Clayton Kirking, a trustee of the Diana Kennedy Foundation and a longtime friend to Kennedy. “We wanted to start with something truly meaningful. Given Diana’s legacy and her life’s work, UT San Antonio was the ideal place to keep her influence alive.”
Before Kennedy’s passing in 2022, the author and culinary anthropologist entrusted UT San Antonio Special Collections with her extensive library and archive of research notes and documents representing six decades of culinary fieldwork in Mexico.
The collection includes more than a dozen Mexican cookbooks from the 19th century, nearly 600 volumes of cookbooks and culinary reference books, and photographs, correspondence, and scrapbooks from her travels and research.
Widely regarded for her unwavering commitment to researching, documenting and raising awareness of the diversity of Mexican cuisine, Kennedy selected UT San Antonio as the home for its extensive Mexican Cookbook Collection based on its strong cultural ties to Mexico and its dedication to sharing historical materials with researchers, chefs, and students.
“This generous support from the Foundation allows us to honor Diana Kennedy’s lifelong commitments to women, sustainability and Mexican gastronomy,” said Dean Hendrix, vice provost and university librarian. “It ensures that her work will continue to educate and inspire researchers around the world.”
Over the next three years, the Foundation’s contribution will support several efforts, including:
- Conserving Diana’s personal library to ensure fragile books and manuscripts are safely preserved for future research.
- Digitization of Kennedy’s papers, scrapbooks and photographs, enabling online access to her research materials.
- Making grants available for UT San Antonio faculty to incorporate Kennedy’s archives and cookbooks into their coursework and research projects.
- Implementing The Diana Kennedy Foundation Fellowship for Research on Women in Food and Sustainability, which will be open to chefs, food writers, community researchers and independent scholars beyond San Antonio.
The grant also supports specialized contactless digitization equipment that allows for material to be scanned safely, efficiently and at the highest quality.
“Diana was passionate about preserving regional Mexican cuisines and making that knowledge accessible,” said Assistant Vice Provost for Special Collections Amy Rushing. “This gift helps us honor that mission while giving new generations of scholars and chefs access to her life’s work.”
Kirking, who was Kennedy’s friend, began cataloging Kennedy’s library over a decade ago, said the partnership between UT San Antonio and the Foundation shows Kennedy’s great respect for librarianship and scholarship.
“As a librarian and library administrator myself, I have deep respect and regard for librarians,” he said. “Diana felt the same way. She wanted her work to live in a place that values the integrity of history and the communities that shaped it.”
