- Wilda Anderson ●
- Eduardo Archetti ●
- Ken Bilby ●
- Maurice Bloch ●
- Joseph Bosco ●
- Roy Bryce Laporte ●
- Sidney Cheung ●
- Marge Collignon ●
- Hal Conklin ●
- Kasia Cwiertka & Sea Ling Cheng ●
- William Davenport ●
- Mark Davis ●
- Sheila De Bretteville ●
- Sophie Desrosiers & Georges Guille-Escuret ●
- Robert Dewar & Alison Richard ●
- Tonio Diaz & Cruzma Nazario ●
- Milad Doueihi ●
- Christine DuBois ●
- Elizabeth Dunn ●
- Kevin Dwyer ●
- Paul Farmer ●
- Pamela Feldman ●
- Brian Ferguson ●
- Elizabeth Ferry ●
- Richard Fox ●
- Juan Giusti Cordero ●
- Darra Goldstein ●
- Jane Guyer ●
- Barbara Haber ●
- Gerhard Hagelberg ●
- Jeanne Hamilton ●
- Jerry Handler ●
- Olivia Harris ●
- Joseph Heyman ●
- Harry & Ligia Hoetink ●
- Margaret Hungerford ●
- Nancy Jenkins ●
- Richard Kagan ●
- Aisha Khan ●
- Tony Maingot ●
- Lynn Martin ●
- Douglas Midgett ●
- Eric Mintz ●
- Viranjini Munasinghe ●
- John Murra ●
- Kirin Narayan ●
- Marion Nestle ●
- Elizabeth Mintz Nickens ●
- Berndt Ostendorf ●
- Stephan Palmie ●
- Leonard Plotnicov ●
- Paul Preuss ●
- Sonia Ryang ●
- Martin Schaffner ●
- Daniela Schlettwein Gesell ●
- Anna Simpkins ●
- Suzanne Siskel ●
- Josephine Smart ●
- Chee Beng Tan ●
- Adrian Taylor ●
- Majid Tehranian ●
- Arthur & Nancy Valk ●
- Katherine Verdery ●
- James Watson ●
- Drexel Woodson ●
- Kevin Yelvington ●
- Familia Zayas ●
Richard Fox
Wenner Gren Foundation
New York, New York
In the interests of preserving Sid's health, I omit any of my recipes, but I would like to provide a tribute to him.
At 80 years of age Sid is obviously not the same person he was when he went to Puerto Rico in 1948. Meaning: after all these years, hes finally got his act together. We know him now as a splendid scholar, a consummate lecturer, a no-slouch bon vivant, and the eponym of a lecture series. But was he always thus? Let us consider the young Sidney Mintz, as reflected in the eyes of Don Taso. Taso was Sid's chief informant and cicerone in the sugar-plantation community that Sid occupied as part of Julian Stewards Puerto Rico project. When I met Don Taso in 1995, he was bed-ridden and doing poorly, but he was not too weak to expound generously, affectionately, and mirthfully on Sid's failings in the field. Evidently, Sid didn't know how to do anything when he arrived—cutting cane, tying ropes, making conversation—you name it, Sid couldn't do it, or so Taso said. It was clear that Sid in the end became Taso's star pupil, as he taught him the ropes, literally and figuratively. Don Taso took much pride in teaching Sid how to stay out of trouble, but he appeared to be even prouder of teaching Sid how to get into it. In that connection, Don Taso did praise Sid's technique with a glass of rum; I suspect he taught him that, too. Now, over a half century later, you perhaps can see Don Taso's teachings in Sid's way with a glass of wine—and more certainly, in Sid's devotion to the craft of ethnography and his admiration for indigenous scholars like Don Taso, who helped teach him that craft.
Dick
