Mexican gastronomy

MEXICAN GASTRONOMY

The present Mexican cuisines are actually a blend of different regional cuisines such as African foods, French dishes, American food etc. However, it is believed that originalMexican cooking may be derived from cooking habits of people from Mayan civilization. Mayan Indians were nomadic settlers who usually relied on hunting and gathering for their living. Regular food ofMayan Indians was corn tortillas eaten with paste made out of beans. Since, they were hunters they also ate meat of animals, fish and some tropical fruits. During 1300s when the Aztec empire wasflourishing they also found eatable items such as peanuts, vanilla beans, chili pepper, cocoa beans, tropical fruit such as avocado etc.
Mexican cuisines started adopted Spanish flavor since 1521 whenSpaniards invaded Mexico. Spanish brought different food items along with them, such as citrus, garlic, cheese, wheat, vinegar etc. Though Spaniards made these introductions to Mexican cuisine they wereunable to completely change the Mexican cooking habits and famous dishes. It was this era when Mexican cuisines were blended with other type of cuisine such as American, French, and Portuguese etc;hence it can be said that Mexican cuisine is vast and diverse. However, it should be known that you might not get the traditional taste of Mexican foods as it transforms from region to region.
In thehistory of Mexican cuisine, most foods are prepared either by grilling or roasting, frying or boiling. These foods were cooked by using famous Mexican tools such as Molcajete, Molino and Metateaccompanied with Mano. Though cooking techniques such as frying, boiling etc may seem familiar; however, the ingredients and tools used were dissimilar. They usually adopt iron pots and ceramic containers tocook as well as serve food. Oven was a new thing for them, as they had no knowledge about it. Steaming is another cooking technique that came into picture and was adopted by Mexicans for preparing...