Jane Blanche Zacharie Hutchings de Baralt (1865/66–1950) was an American-Cuban lecturer, writer and translator. She was the first woman to receive a degree in philosophy from the University of Havana and the first person to translate Rabindranath Tagore into Spanish. In a 1931 cookbook, she provided an early recipe for the mojito cocktail.

Life

Jane Blanche Zacharie Hutchings was born in

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. Most sources give her year of birth as 1865, but according to one source she was born on September 17, 1866. Her father was a perfumier of Polish ancestry, and her mother was from New Jersey. She was sent to France for her primary education before continuing study in the United States. On 15 December 1886 she married Luis Alejandro Baralt y Peoli, a Cuban physician, journalist, diplomat and linguist in New York. They lived in New York, until moving to Havana in 1900. In 1902 she became the first women to be awarded a philosophy PhD from the University of Havana. In 1913 she read Tagore's poetry collection ''Gitanjali''. On August 6, 1913, she published a review, along with some of Tagore's poems translated into Spanish, in the Cuban newspaper '' El Diario de la Marina''. This is said to be the first Spanish translation of his poetry. Cuban Cookery 1931 by Blanche Zacharie de Baralt page 129

Cuban Cookery 1931 by Blanche Zacharie de Baralt page 129

Baralt published her

cookbook A cookbook or cookery book is a kitchen reference containing recipes. Cookbooks may be general, or may specialize in a particular cuisine or category of food. Recipes in cookbooks are organized in various ways: by course (appetizer, first cour ...

, ''Cuban Cookery'', in 1931. It was the first English-language guide to Cuban cuisine, illustrated by the Cuban artists Conrado W. Massaguer and

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. Clearly directed at an international readership, the book emphasized European origins of Cuban food. Baralt argued that "the cuisine of a country is one of its psychological aspects, an accumulation of slow growth, almost a synthesis of its civilization". An appendix on Cuban drinks included a recipe for a mojito cocktail, which she called a "rum cocktail (Cuban mojo)". In 1945 she published a book about the Cuban national hero José Martí. The playwright Luis Alejandro Baralt Zacharie was her son.

Works

* ''Estudios de arte y de vida'' tudies in art and life París: P. Ollendorff, 914 * ''Cuban cookery: gastronomic secrets of the Tropics, with an appendix on Cuban drinks''. Havana: Hermes, 1931. * ''El Martí quo yo conocí'' he El Martí I knew La Habana: Editorial Trópico, 1945.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Zacharie de Baralt, Blanche 1860s births 1950 deaths University of Havana alumni American writers American translators Cuban writers Cuban translators Translators from Bengali Translators to Spanish American cookbook writers American emigrants to Cuba 19th-century Cuban writers