Chocolate, avocados, tacos – Mexico’s culinary gifts to the world, and ways to use them in the kitchen
- Spanish conquistadores went to Mexico in search of gold, but it was culinary treasures their ships carried home to Spain: tomatoes, squash, peanuts, chocolate
- In recent decades more exotic Mexican ingredients, such as squash blossom, and dishes like ceviche have been popularised, two food writers recount
What would Italian food be without tomatoes, or Indian food without chillies? Imagine life without chocolate, or squash or beans.
In México: The Beautiful Cookbook (1991), authors Marilyn Tausend and Susanna Palazuelos point out the contributions Mexican ingredients have made to world cuisines.
“Nor did they know that the soul-satisfying cup of hot chocolate they happily sipped on a cold winter day was a gift of the cacao and vanilla of Mexico’s first civilisations.
“Then, in the mid-1970s, British-born Diana Kennedy stirred up the gastronomical world with her cookbooks on the regional cuisines of Mexico, and it was realised that such exotic ingredients as squash blossoms and the fleshy paddles of nopal cactus were being used by Mexican cooks to create subtly flavored dishes very similar to those prepared by the Aztecs.
“It became obvious that Mexican food was not just another fast food but a distinct and truly great cuisine.”
They write: “Mexican cooking is more than indigenous dishes journeying untouched through the centuries. It is the grafting of the fruits and vegetables, meats, grains and the spices of the Old World onto the root stock of the native foods, resulting in a cuisine that reflects the buffeting and enrichment of its turbulent evolution through the centuries – crêpes of exotic corn fungus, bowls of steaming menudo, pit-roasted pork seasoned with the unique flavours of achiote and bitter orange, crystallised limes plumped full of grated coconut, and yes, the uncountable varieties of tacos, tamales and salsas, shockingly hot to the unprepared palate.
“The Spaniards came to the New World in search of gold, but it was their discovery of new foods that has had the greatest impact on the world: corn, beans of great variety, peanuts, sweet potatoes, squashes, pumpkin, tomatoes and the little-known but highly nutritional amaranth.
“The fruits they found – the fragrant pineapple, guava, papaya and avocado – have enriched the diets of many people, and the three major flavourings from Mexico – chile, chocolate and vanilla – certainly changed the taste of foods eaten around the world.”
Chapters in the book are divided by main ingredients, as well as regionally – The Maya World, Pacific Coast, The Frontier. The recipes reflect the diversity of the country and include almond eggnog, corn pudding, fried pork skin soufflé, pot roast stuffed with bacon, crab and cactus paddle cocktail, dried shrimp patties, chicken with mountain herbs, Oaxacan egg bread, shrimp in coconut shells, and meringue with mangoes and soft custard.
