Another popular world cuisine that I managed to taste while in Mexico is Mexican cuisine. I must admit that its main and characteristic feature is the addition of chili pepper to almost all dishes, so all dishes are so spicy that they had to be washed down with refreshing drinks.
A bit of history about Mexican cuisine
I learned about Mexican cuisine and its history from an excursion to the “blue agave” plantations, where the incomparable tequila is made, be sure to read this article. As a guide, whom I met thanks to other tourists traveling on their own, told me, Mexican cuisine began its ascent in the early 16th century, thanks to the reunification of Spanish and Native American traditions.
The first dishes of the Mexican smithy were not a very rich choice, they included only beans and corn tortillas, tomatoes, and dishes made from chili and other spices. Then the matter went to the Spaniards, who brought new products to this country, such as wheat, rice, meat, herbs, wine and even cheese products.
Since the end of the 16th century, Mexican cuisine has been known throughout the world for its delicious dishes and traditional cooking recipes. Currently, all the recipes for preparing traditional Mexican dishes have not changed.
Main ingredients of Mexican cuisine
As I already said, all the recipes for traditional dishes have not changed and are prepared from the same ingredients as in the early 16th century. All Mexican cuisine dishes have their own traditional ingredients: beans, corn, hot chili peppers and their varieties, many hot spices, cactus, meat, cocoa ...
On the coast of Mexico, there is a contrast of seafood dishes with the same listed ingredients. The main ingredient of dishes in Mexico is various types of beans; in each separate region of this country, several dozen of this culture grow and each type of beans has its own taste. Having tasted four types of black beans, I did not feel the difference, as for me there is one taste, as they say "beans are also in Africa beans."
The most important place in traditional Mexican cuisine is corn, all the abundance of dishes in this cuisine consists mostly of an ingredient - corn in any form. As for the chili pepper, it is the second ingredient in the cuisine, there are more than 78 varieties of it in Mexico.
When it comes to meat, before Indian cuisine learned Spanish innovations, there was a variety of game (snakes, beetles, birds, iguanas ...). Nowadays, you will no longer find such dishes, now they cook the meat we all are used to, especially fish dishes are very tasty, for example, fish - sword with lemon or cod with garlic.
- By the way, everything about a beach vacation in Mexico, prices, reviews and other moments of a vacation by the sea can be found on a separate page. Full heading about travel in Mexico.
Traditional Mexican drinks
Of all the traditional drinks in Mexico, of course, it is worth highlighting tequila, the only country where you can taste real tequila. In other countries where I managed to taste tequila, I was disappointed, a really real and traditional Mexican drink called tequila can only be made in their homeland.
I don't know why I remember the taste of tequila in Mexico, but I will say one thing, tequila must be drunk freshly prepared. Yes, there are also drinks with barrel aging for several years, but their taste is not the same. By the way, on excursions in France, I learned a lot of useful things about barrels for fermenting wine and other alcoholic beverages, it turns out that the quality of the material and the way the barrel is assembled greatly affects the taste, you can read about this in a separate article on oak barrels for wine.
Another drink belonging to the Mexican cuisine is the traditional drink "Mescal", to be honest, this is the same as tequila, but for some reason it is considered a separate drink here, it seemed to me a little higher alcohol content, and a little cleaner in color.
In fact, in order to check the quality of the Mezcal drink, according to tradition, a caterpillar is placed in a glass, then a drink is poured, if the caterpillar does not dissolve, then the drink is considered to be of high quality, but who will drink it after the caterpillar, I do not know. Having learned this tradition, I no longer touched the Mexican drink Mescal!
As for Mexican wines, all the wines that are produced here are made according to European technologies, you will not find traditional Mexican wines here, but you can try drinks such as Don Pedro brandy, which you really like and real Mexican Corona beer.
The most popular traditional Mexican dishes
In order to avoid your misunderstanding about all Mexican dishes, I will explain a little about what a tortilla is. Almost all Mexican cuisine consists of tortilla. Tortilla is a soft and thin wheat or corn tortilla.
Burrito - tortilla flatbread stuffed with minced meat (beans, avocado, rice, cheese ...)
Fajitas - grilled meat wrapped in a flat cake
Takos is a tortilla dish filled with different fillings - beef, pork, chicken, seafood ...
Quesadilla - a corn tortilla or wheat tortilla with cheese
Enchilada - A thin cornmeal tortilla with meat filling
Chipotle - a seasoning of crushed red pepper
Nachos is a tortilla chips with various additives, a snack from Mexican cuisine
A bunch of dishes made from a variety of all vegetation and living creatures inhabiting the territory of Mexico, the most important thing that shocked me is that you will not find imported products here like in Russia, everyone here cooks from their own!
You can see the names of Mexican traditional dishes in any restaurant in your city, there is not enough space to list them, because one dish may have a composition of ingredients, but if you add one spice, this dish will be called differently. I advise you to learn less theory and try more Mexican cuisine with travel-picture.ru, do not forget to subscribe to the latest articles on tourism.
