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Dining Guide
/ Mexican Cuisine
Of all American
cuisines Mexican is the most original. Even though it has integrated
a fair share of the cuisine of the Spanish conquistadors
it is more different from Spanish cuisine than is US cuisine from
continental European cuisine, or French Canadian cuisine from French
cuisine.
The originality
of Mexican cuisine partially results from the integration of the
cooking of the indigenous nations like the Aztec, Toltec,
and the Mayas and partially from own developments based on
the major cultivated grain, corn, and kidney beans.
Both, corn
and beans (frijoles), are staple foods nowhere in the world
but in a number of Latin American countries, first of all Mexico.
Corn meal is used to make tacos (thin crisp unleavened flat
bread), and beans appear mainly in the most common and internationally
best known Mexican dish, chili con carne. It's so self-understood
that beans are in chili con carne that they don't even appear as
part of the name such as the two other main ingredients, carne (ground
meat) and chili (ground small hot pepper pods).
Chili
is something Mexico has in common with a part of the world that
otherwise has absolutely no resemblance to Mexico: South and Southeast
Asia. The Mexicans not only put it in chili con carne but commonly
also in salads (in that case not ground) and on meat, fish, and
seafood alike.
Omelets are
a very important dish in Mexican cuisine, adopted from the Spanish
but further developed into enchiladas. Whereas the original
Spanish omelets are thick, with the ingredients mixed into the omelet
or pancake dough, the Mexican enchiladas are thin and the ingredients
are a filling within the rolled omelet. More often than in the Spanish
tortillas, the ingredients in enchiladas remain raw (such as
the tomatoes) and cold (such as the cheese).
Other descriptions:
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