Indigenous Cooking

The pre-Hispanic tradition was to grind and cook on the ground level in a house or fireplace formed by three round stones placed on a circle leaving a space in the center to light the fire. Nahuas called it tlecuilli; Purépechas, paranguas; and Zapotecas yig te (ash stone). This kind of fireplace is still used in all around the country. The fireplace can be improvised anywhere: in the field or in a given place as the corridor or in a special room in the house used as a kitchen. The fireplace is made with firewood and the fire is set with ocote twigs (resinous pieces of live trees). Natives also use as fuel dry maguey leaves and corn ears, but the latter are not very commonly used because they smoke too much. The fire is poked with blowers, which are woven fans made of tule, palm or other materials. Zapotecos make them with turkey feathers, for example.

The most common utensils in the kitchen are the metate (a concave stone used for grinding seeds) and the molcajete (stone mortar); the clay comal (round dish) which is spread with lime and water to prevent tortillas from sticking and clay containers in thousands of shapes and sizes: two-ear pots (two-handles), dishes, vases, jars, bassoons for carrying water and big tinaja (large earthen jars) which buried in the ground are used as water deposits. Each one of the utensils had and still has a specific use to avoid the mixture of flavors. The same happens with wooden spoons.

From the vegetal earthen bowls round and thin jicaras are gotten in which liquids were and still are served; tecomates for keeping salt and pilgrim bules for water. They use bunches of dry corn leaves for wrapping food. They sit on small stools usually made of wood. Packages are carried in fiber objects like chiquihuites and ayates. Woven tenate (big basket) is essential in Oaxaca for carrying groceries. Ditch reed baskets and tascales are also very common. Another common object for natives is the cotton napkin, essential for wrapping tortillas, and it has its own characteristics depending on the region.

When the crossbreeding happened, native women started cooking and grinding on high levels. They invented a kind of fireplace made with mud they themselves make in their communities. Among the Tarascos they are called ticui and they put them in the “smoke kitchens”. They are a kind of table placed on a wall, held by two tree logs buried on the ground which is usually made of soil. They form the hearth and on different levels they insert the comal and place the metate so that they can grind standing.

The merit of having corns on the knees for grinding kneeling on a petate (straw mat) is history. But native women still grind and in towns it is said that “a real woman can grind even on her knees”.

Traditional native food was enriched with plants and animals which came from other lands like chickens, bovine cattle, wheat, sugar cane, onion and rice. Nevertheless no cereal could replace corn and no legume could take over for beans.

Fortunately, despite all the changes, pre-Hispanic food is still in the life and tables of Mexicans. In far away places, they still have the privilege of getting wild animals and plants which are only used locally, because in cities they are a real luxury. Among these special foods are the chayote, pumpkin and chipilin hearts; tender bean leaves, yucca flowers and cabuches, jumiles, maguey worms, large grasshoppers and escamoles (ant larva). If you want to know some more about this, we recommend you visit the What is eaten? section.