Photography by Samantha Demangate
Amongst the pyramids and ruins of Mexico’s heartland, is a culinary story that has taken on the world and changed it forever.
“How many degrees is this building tilting?” I asked the museum curator in Mexico City’s Palacio de la Autonomía de la UNAM museum. “A little, the city was built on a lake and now it’s sinking.” The lake she was talking about was Lake Texcoco, a vast body of freshwater in the center of the Valley of Mexico. Here on a small island, before the modern megalopolis of Ciudad de México, existed Tenochtitlan, one of the largest cities of the Pre-Columbian Americas. The city was slowly built by the Mexica people throughout the 14th and 15th centuries and became the powerful political center to an empire that stretched over 80,000 square miles from the Gulf of Mexico to the Pacific. Tenochtitlan was a flourishing capital until the Spaniards, led by Hernan Cortes entered the city. Within a few decades, the Spaniards took the Empire. The mighty Aztec armies traded their chimalli shields and spears for swords and muskets emblazoned with the Spanish coat of arms. Smallpox and other diseases ravaged the population, and Christian churches were built atop the dismantled temples. Yet, even amongst the heavy casualties and cultural destruction, many traditions survived, none stronger than cuisine.
The Zocalo of Mexico City
Early Mexican societies developed advanced farming techniques for corn, squash, chilis, tomatoes, and many other fruits and vegetables we love today. Corn, or maize, became the quintessential food that was used throughout mesoamerica. Early tortillas were cooked on hot stone plates known as comals from as far back as the mesolithic period. Tamales, another famous Mexican staple made from maize, may predate the tortilla by even longer. The first tamales were used as a portable food source for armies, hunters, and workers. Because they were steamed, any kind of grill was superfluous. All that was needed was a banana leaf or corn husk to wrap the masa dough before steaming. The wrapping would preserve the contents and work as a portable plate. In the Aztec capital of Tenochtitlan, tamales were filled with vegetables, turkey, and other types of meats, a manor of preparation that still survives today.
The various uses of maize
Just twenty-five kilometers northeast of Mexico City are the towering pyramids of Teotihuacan, an ancient capital that was once the largest city in the Americas during the first century AD. Inside one of the newly opened halls are 2nd century murals depicting not only the Teotihuacan gods but agriculture as well. Like Tenochtitlan a millennium later, the most important crop was maize. “The temples were once painted in the same colors as the local maize varieties,” said our guide, a local anthropologist who runs Airbnb tours to fund his studies. Other crops include nopal cactus, amaranth, and the maguey cactus which was fermented into the slightly alcoholic and nutritious drink known as pulque. When Teotihuacan was flourishing, consumption of pulque was only permitted to priests, elders during ceremonies or festivities, and those about to be sacrificed. Now you can find pulquerias, the drinking establishments that serve it, throughout the Central highlands of Mexico and beyond. The drink of the gods is finding its new renaissance and now even in the United States.
Pulque & the pyramids of Teotihuacan
Buried within the ruins of Teotihuacan, seeds and bones gave an early indication as to what the people were eating and trading in the markets. Maize, beans, deer, turkey, and chili peppers were the most common, including seeds from plants native to other regions of mesoamerica. Centuries later, in nearby Tenochtitlan, people’s diets were recorded by not only Aztec scholars but by the Spaniards as well. The city, being built in the middle of the lake, had access to all sorts of wild game, sealife, crustaceans, and insects; the latter still being eaten today all over the country. Mexico is one of the most entomophagy embracing countries on the planet and for good reason. Insects have and continue to provide countless dishes and sauces with their rich aroma, flavor, and complexity, not to mention they’re an almost inexhaustible source of nutrition. Even the entomophobic Europeans couldn’t resist, and today ordering a grasshopper sope or mole made with ant larvae is commonplace.
Chilis, el chapulin (grasshopper) & ruins of Tenochtitlan
Modern Mexican cuisine represents the convergence of several powerful and far-reaching empires that tell a tale of conquest, trade, and valuing tradition. The Europeans, for better or worse, brought their own foods and food processing techniques to the Americas which permeated Mexican cuisine. European staples like beef, pork, dairy, wheat, and even distillation changed everything. Spain’s empire reached far and wide and soon trade routes were established between all the colonies, including Asia. Following this, many ingredients we consider inseparable from Mexican cuisine came in, like limes, cilantro, rice, mango, coffee, and onions. Even though Asia’s impact on modern Mexican cooking is undeniable, the American contribution to global gastronomy is probably more significant. Imagine Italian classics without tomatoes, Southeast Asian cuisine without chili, English and Irish comforts without potatoes, and most importantly, where would any of us be without chocolate?
Mexico’s standing in global cuisine is untouchable, thanks to a millennium of knowledge passed down through generations. Standing in the Zocalo, in the center of Mexico City, you feel as though you’re in an old European capital. The grand Cathedral to your North, the National Palace to your East, modern museums, shopping plazas, and skyscrapers looming on the horizon. All of this, however, was built atop another city. The same stones that once adorned the temples and palaces are now standing in the European designed towers and cobblestone streets. It’s easy to imagine the markets of Tenochtitlan being filled with people from all over the empire and beyond, selling produce like corn, nopal, turkeys, avocados, piping hot tamales or stewed tomatoes and chilis. All of these culinary traditions not only survived European occupation but have become the heart of Mexican cuisine itself and continue to shape global gastronomy into the future.
For more photography by Samantha Demangate, please visit: Samitographi.com
If you like this article, check out https://wayfarersoliloquy.com/2022/02/07/exploring-the-mayan-world-of-the-yucatan-peninsula/