H and H Coffee

Dedicated to the history of the Hoffmann-Hayman Coffee Co. founded 1899 in San Antonio, Texas.

Edible San Antonio Issue No. 18 — La Familia Cortez 75 Years spread

Edible San Antonio · Issue No. 18 · August/September 2016 · regional food magazine (Edible Communities affiliate)

Bibliographic detail

  • Title: Edible San Antonio, Issue No. 18 (August/September 2016)
  • Featured article: “La Familia Cortez — 75 Years of Food and Family”
  • Publisher: Edible San Antonio (an Edible Communities regional affiliate magazine)
  • Year: 2016
  • ISSN: TBD — to be confirmed in-hand
  • Pagination: TBD; H and H-relevant spread is page 48
  • Format: Bi-monthly perfect-bound regional food-and-drink magazine; glossy stock, full-color editorial photography

Physical description

Standard Edible San Antonio issue format. Condition recorded as good in the accession register. Four gallery images captured for the artifact: the p48 frame, the article opener, the double-page spread, and a closeup of the H and H-relevant detail. The held copy is the print issue (Aug/Sep 2016, Issue No. 18).

Provenance

Acquired 23 August 2016; accessioned as HH-BOOK-2016-0001. The magazine was purchased specifically for the La Familia Cortez spread — H and H descendant outreach surfaced the issue’s Master Chef Coffee sign frame and the magazine was added to the collection as the print-source record.

See the original Master Chef × Edible San Antonio post for the find note, and the 2024 Witte Museum update tracking the painted-portrait imagery into the Witte Museum.

Why it matters

This issue carries the La Familia Cortez “75 Years of Food and Family” article on the Mi Tierra Café founding family (Pedro and Cruz Cortez, 1941). The spread includes a painted portrait of the Cortez founders standing in front of the Mi Tierra storefront — and on the building wall to the right of the Mi Tierra marquee, the Master Chef Coffee chef-mascot sign is clearly visible. This is research-grade evidence for:

  1. The Mi Tierra ↔ Master Chef wall-sign relationship — a long-standing, public-facing depiction of the Master Chef sign in Cortez-family iconography. The sign’s appearance in a 2016 commissioned portrait confirms its continuing cultural presence.
  2. Color question (open): the painting renders the Master Chef sign as green, while surviving 1950s black-and-white photographs of the same storefront show the project’s standard MASTER CHEF COFFEE sign. Is the green an artistic license by the portrait painter, a period color memory from the Cortez family, or evidence of an earlier color scheme later changed? This open question is flagged on the Master Chef Coffee brand page and is one of the actively-researched threads in the Master Chef brand lineage.
  3. Provenance for the painted portrait image — the same painted portrait reappears on the 2016 “Nuestra Cultura · 75 Años” Cortez-family anniversary lanyard pass (Al Rendón photography; later catalogued at the Witte Museum). The Edible spread is one of the two known 2016 publications of this image, the other being the lanyard.

The magazine ties together the Cortez-family centenarian-business narrative (Mi Tierra), the Master Chef brand history, the 601 Delaware Street downtown SA business district, and the Al Rendón / Witte Museum documentary thread — making it a research-multiplier artifact.

Notable contents

  • Page 48 — La Familia Cortez article opener / lead image.
  • Article spread — painted Cortez-family portrait in front of Mi Tierra; Master Chef Coffee sign visible (green-rendered).
  • Closeup — detail of the Master Chef chef-mascot rendering on the building wall.
  • Rest-of-issue: standard Edible SA food-and-drink editorial content (not H and H-relevant, but useful for date-stamping the SA food-scene context).

Open questions

  • Master Chef sign color (see “Why it matters” above) — artistic license vs. period memory vs. earlier sign era.
  • Painter attribution — who painted the Cortez-family portrait? The lanyard credits Al Rendón for the photograph; the underlying painting credit to be confirmed.
  • Magazine archive status — is the Aug/Sep 2016 issue archived/scannable from Edible San Antonio’s own back-issue program? Cross-reference any digital version.

Related: Master Chef Coffee · Mi Tierra Café Master Chef sign post · Master Chef × Edible San Antonio (post) · Mi Tierra 75 Años / Witte (2024 update) · Library · Library — Purchase List