Many foods enjoyed by the world today were first cultivated in ancient America. One such food was chocolate, made from cocoa beans. The chocolate drink prepared by the ancient Americans was similar to the hot chocolate we drink today, only more bitter and spicy, as chocolate also flavoured with chilli peppers and spices.
They sweetened it with honey and flavored it with vanilla. Aztec food recipes There are some excellent recipes available online. Find a low carb Mixiotes recipe here. There's also a recipe for atole. For more Aztec recipes, try a search at cooks.
Of course, not all of these are real authentic Aztec food , but after reading this article you should have an idea what common elements are in Aztec cooking. For more on traditional Mexican food and what came from the Aztecs, check here. By the way, we know the Aztecs didn't eat chicken, but just for fun here's an Aztec chicken recipe The meat is rabbit, and it's in a red sauce with cactus.
This cookbook actually, an ebook you can download right away will bring Mexican food to your own table, whether you live in Mexico or not. If you quote this material please be courteous and provide a link. The beans would be soaked in water for several hours and then boiled until they were soft. They would sometimes be mixed with other vegetables to make a soup or stew. The most important fruit and vegetables were chilli peppers, tomatoes, sweet potatoes, onions and avocados. Squash was also extremely popular, including courgettes and pumpkins.
The seeds were eaten fresh, dried or roasted. Red and green tomatoes were often mixed with chilli in sauces or as filling for tamales. The Aztecs also ate various mushrooms and funghi, including the parasitic corn smut which grows on ears of corn. The main fruits consumed were guavas, papayas, custard apples, zapotes, mamey and chirimoyas.
The Aztec diet was mostly dominated by fruit and vegetables, however they did eat a variety of fish and wild game. Rabbits, birds, frogs, tadpoles, salamanders, green iguanas, pocket gophers and insects and their eggs and larvae all served as valuable food sources.
The Aztecs also ate domesticated turkeys, duck and dogs, and at times larger wild animals such as deer. These, however, were eaten only on rare occasions. Chilli peppers, which came in a variety of species, were often dried and ground up for storage and use in cooking. The Aztec cuisine featured a significant number of flavours, including sweet, fruity, earthy, smoky and fiery hot. An illustration depicting elderly Aztecs smoking and drinking pulque Credit: Codex Mendoza. The rich made a point to not drink pulque.
Made up of 8 parts water and 6 parts maize with lime, the mixture would be cooked until softened and thickened. Alcoholic drinks were made from fermented maize, honey, cacti, pineapple and other plants and fruits. A vast number of varieties of Maize grew in central Mexico — some yellow, red, white with colored stripes, black with speckles and a blue husked variant. Many others were thought to have existed, but few made it into recorded history. Interestingly, the Aztecs invented a process called nixtamalization, a compound of the Nahuatl words for ashes and tamal.
Dried maize was soaked and cooked in an alkaline solution — like limewater. This released the outer hull of the grain and made the maize easier to grind. It also caused a chemical change which transformed the maize into a more nutritionally complex food — by increasing the amount of calcium, iron, copper, zinc, niacin and riboflavin.
In short, nixtamalization made the nutrients in the maize more bioavailable and easily assimilated. This process is still in use today. Tortillas, tamales and casseroles were created using maize. Sometimes meat was incorporated into the dish; most often a basic meal of tortillas dipped in ground chili paste were served. The maize crops were subject to damage by weather, much the same as today. Because the cultivation of maize played a huge role in the survival of the Aztec people, they worshipped Centeotl — the God of Maize.
Centeotl is most often represented as a young warrior, with maize cobs and ears sprouting from his head, holding a scepter with green cob ears. To honor Centeotl and presumably keep the maize safe people carried out self-sacrifices through blood- letting rituals, often sprinkling their houses with blood.
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