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Gastronomy
The originality of Mexican food -with its diverse tastes, colors, smells and textures that are present every day on our tables, on the altars where we remember and pay tribute to our dead, in the religious, patriotic and family fiestas- is proudly recognized at world level and considered among the five most important in the world together with those of China, India, Italy and France.
In Mexico, the fiestas, traditions, ceremonies and daily life interweave and are enriched with food, which bases its value on the vast number of ingredients it uses. Thanks to the diversity of its climates, the country is one of the Vavilov Centers (in honor of Russian biologist Nicolai I. Vavilov 1887-1943, who described them) where the world’s main food crops have originated. Some of the species that have been domesticated in Mexico are chili, corn, beans, squash, cacao, peanuts, avocadoes, vanilla, amaranth, maguey, tomatoes, sweet potatoes, cotton, papaya, sisal, huexolotl (turkey) and the dog xoloitzcuintle, brought from Asia.
Mexico’s great culinary diversity is also due to the fact that in the pre-Hispanic era the country was home to very diverse indigenous groups (Mayan, Teotihuacan, Toltec, Huastec, Purépecha, to name a few) each with its own gastronomic customs, although with a common trunk made up of ingredients such as corn, beans and chili.
The culinary diversity of the native population multiplied with the mixing of races. Spanish cuisine brought to Mexico a large part of European culinary traditions, with an important dose of customs from North Africa. Some ingredients from the Far East also reached Mexico, such as rice, spices, mangoes, tamarind and coconut.
As of the 19th century, French, Italians and Americans came to Mexico, especially during Porfirio Díaz’s presidency (in Díaz’s penultimate year alone there were 68,000 authorized foreign immigrants). During the Spanish Civil War there was a valuable Republican migratory flow that breathed a new spirit into the national culture, and in World War II we received numerous Europeans who left their seed here. Jews of various nationalities opted for ours. The difficult years of the Southern Cone benefited our country with Chileans, Argentineans and Uruguayans. The Lebanese and Germans also have considerable communities. Each nationality brought with it its food habits, thanks to which the cultural and gastronomic mosaic of Mexico was enriched.
We Mexicans feel proud of our cuisine and we want to share it with you, because the best way to get to know Mexico is through its dishes and beverages.