Eat Your Way through Latin America: Mexico

For Hispanic Heritage Month, the “Eat Your Way through Latin America” series will feature the top five Latin American countries represented on campus at Elon over the course of the next five weeks. Although we recognize that we are not of Hispanic heritage, as anthropologists and avid food lovers, we wanted to respect the cultural backgrounds and experiences of our fellow students.

In Mexico, a country full of rituals and traditions, food is considered ritualistic and almost sacred. Ancient pre-hispanic cultures like the Mayans, Aztecs, Olmecs and Teotihuacans associated food with sacred rites. Dishes were based on the availability of crops depending on the seasons, but staple ingredients include corn, chilies, beans, avocados and cactus, which are vital to Mexican cuisine today.
Corn was a necessary part of pre-hispanic cultures’ diets. According to legends and myths, Mexicans came from corn. The god Quetzalcoatl gave the Aztecs corn, which was previously said to be out of their reach due to the mountains surrounding their settlements. Aside from recipes with corn cobs themselves, methods of cooking with corn were passed down from pre-hispanic cultures as well, like cooking tamales wrapped with corn husks. Huitlacoche, a fungus that grows on corn, is still used today in quesadillas, tamales and tacos. Additionally to corn, ancient cultures often ate grasshoppers, escarmols, frogs and reptiles; this is unusual now, but these can still be found in street markets.

Street food is also a large part of Mexican culture. Vendors sell antojitos, which are snacks most often sold in open-air markets. Common antojitos include tacos, tortas, garnachas, flautas, slices of jicama or pineapple and elotes. In addition to street food, festivals play a large role in cultural preservation. All typical festivals involve some sort of food or dish that is special to that celebration. For Día de los Muertos, families offer pan de muerto, and other types of food on ofrendas to loved ones that have passed. During Dia de los Reyes, rosca, a ring-shaped bread, is shared. These festivals are often celebrated with family, and food is central to gatherings of family and friends.

Between regions, there is a diversity of flavors but the dishes themselves remain fairly universal throughout the country. Recipes are not the same countrywide as they are often passed down through families or made differently depending on the region from which they originate. Some famous regional dishes include the “Thousand Flavors of Mole” from Oaxaca, the Yucatan Cochinita sandwich, and the Guadalajara torta ahogada, which is a sandwich “drowned” in salsa. There is an immense diversity of food in Mexico, as it represents different regions and groups. These cultural acts are important shared experiences among members of the community.

Cooking and eating are cultural acts embedded in our cultural identities. Food is often a large part of national identity, so there is a significant amount of pride associated with traditional food from around the world. International travel and gastronomic tourism promote the preservation of traditional dishes that have had a significant impact on the construction of a society’s food structures. Experiencing the culture of a country or region directly correlates with the food from that location and is a way to preserve heritages, as seen through traditional Mexican food.

Stay tuned for the next part of the “Eat Your Way through Latin America” series by following @theedgemag!