Cuisine

Mexican

A cuisine rooted in Mesoamerican corn, beans, squash and chillies, transformed by Spanish ingredients, with complex sauces (moles, salsas), nixtamalised corn tortillas and strong regional identities.

Flavour character: Earthy and layered: toasted dried chillies (ancho, guajillo, pasilla, chipotle), fresh green chillies, charred tomato and tomatillo, lime, coriander, Mexican oregano, cumin and cinnamon in moles, corn's sweetness.

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Regional cuisines

OaxacanSouthern Mexico's most celebrated regional cooking, known as the 'land of seven moles', with tlayudas, stringy quesillo, chocolate, grasshoppers (chapulines) and mezcal.
YucatecanThe Maya-rooted cooking of the Yucatán peninsula: achiote and sour-orange marinades, pit-cooked pork, habanero salsas and pickled red onions, distinct from central Mexican food.

History

Mesoamerican peoples domesticated maize, beans, squash, chillies, tomatoes, tomatillos, avocados, cacao and vanilla, and developed nixtamalisation (cooking corn with lime), which makes niacin available and allows masa dough. The Spanish conquest from 1519 added pork, beef, chicken, dairy, wheat, rice, sugar, onions, garlic and Old World spices; convent kitchens in Puebla are traditionally linked to mole poblano and chiles en nogada. 'Traditional Mexican cuisine' was inscribed by UNESCO in 2010, the first national cuisine on the list.

Well documented

Geography and influences

High central plateau and volcanic valleys, deserts in the north, tropical coasts on two oceans and the Yucatán peninsula: corn, beans, chillies, cacao, tropical fruit and seafood.

Aztec, Maya, Zapotec, Purépecha and other Indigenous cultures
Spanish colonial cooking and convents
African influences on the Gulf coast
Lebanese immigrants (tacos árabes, al pastor)
French intervention (bakery)

Regional variations

Central (Mexico City, Puebla): Mole poblano, chiles en nogada, tacos al pastor, street food.
Oaxaca: Seven moles, tlayudas, quesillo and mezcal; see its own profile.
Yucatán: Maya-rooted achiote and sour-orange cooking; see its own profile.
North (Sonora, Chihuahua, Nuevo León): Beef, flour tortillas, carne asada, cabrito.
West (Jalisco, Michoacán): Birria, pozole, carnitas, tequila.
Gulf coast (Veracruz): Seafood, Spanish-style huachinango a la veracruzana, salsa macha.