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History Of Traditional Mexican Food

Traditional Mexican food is actually a fusion of foods from the Aztecs and the Mayan Indian civilizations mixed with European influences. Corn is still the main staple of the Mexican diet. Rice for example, a now well known staple, wasn’t introduced to Mexico until the Spaniards brought it over in the 1500s. Now rice and corn make up the majority of traditional Mexican food dishes. Mexican cuisine has a noticeable Spanish influence because of all of the new ingredients that were brought from there in the 1500s.

The history of what we can call traditional Mexican food started when Spain invaded Mexico in 1521 and has grown and expanded ever since then. Traditional Mexican food is based on tortillas, rice, beans, corn, tomatoes, meats of all kinds, and cheese. If you have any of these items you can make a traditional Mexican meal. Mexican food is known for its variety of spices, colorful decoration, and flavor variations. The use of different chiles helps to contribute to not only the heat of Mexican food, but the different colors. There are chiles of pretty much any color you can think of, and are the base of most of the sauces in traditional Mexican cooking.

To read more about the history of traditional Mexican food, read through our many articles. We also have a lot of traditional Mexican food recipes for you to try out!