Aztec cuisine
Aztec cuisine is the cuisine of the former Aztec Empire and the Nahua peoples of the Valley of Mexico prior to European contact in 1519.
The most important staple was corn, a crop that was so important to Aztec society that it played a central part in their culture. Just like wheat in much of Europe or rice in most of East Asia, it was the food without which a meal was not a meal. It came in varieties that differed in color, texture, size and prestige, and was eaten as corn tortillas, tamales or ātōlli, maize gruel. The other constants of Aztec food were salt and chili peppers and the basic definition of Aztec fasting was to abstain from these two.
The other major foods were beans, squash and New World varieties of the grains amaranth, and chia. The combination of maize and these basic foods would have provided the average diet.
The cooking of maize grains in alkaline solutions, a process called nixtamalization, significantly raised the nutritional value of the common staple.
Water, maize gruels and pulque and the fermented juice of the century plant, were the most common drinks, and there were many different fermented alcoholic beverages made from honey, cacti and various fruits. The elite took pride in not drinking pulque, a drink of commoners, and preferred drinks made from cacao, among the most prestigious luxuries available. Favored by rulers, warriors and nobles, they were flavored with chili peppers, honey and a long list of spices and herbs.
The Aztec diet included a variety of fish and wild game: various fowl, pocket gophers, green iguanas, axolotls, a type of crayfish called acocil, and a great variety of insects, larvae and insect eggs.
They also domesticated turkeys, duck and dogs as food and at times ate meat from larger wild animals such as deer, but none of these were a major part of their diet. They ate various mushrooms and fungi, including the parasitic corn smut, which grows on ears of corn.
Squash was very popular and came in many different varieties. Squash seeds, fresh, dried or roasted, were especially popular. Tomatoes, though different from the varieties common today, were often mixed with chili in sauces or as filling for tamales.
Eating in Aztec culture could take on a sacred meaning, especially as evidenced in ritual cannibalism. The act of eating another human was deeply connected to the Aztec culture, in which gods needed to consume the sacrificed flesh and blood of humans to sustain themselves, and the world.
One way to look at this is that since human flesh was a food of the gods, it was sacred, and consuming sacred food could sanctify an individual and bring him or her closer to the gods. Further, certain warriors, in their afterlife, were believed to have been turned into butterflies and hummingbirds with the ability to fly back to the realm of the living to feed on nectar. From this, the importance the Aztecs ascribed to the act of eating is clear.
Meals
Most sources describe two meals per day, though there is an account of laborers getting three meals, one at dawn, another one at around 9 in the morning, and one at around 3 in the afternoon. This is similar to the custom in contemporary Europe, but it is unclear if intake of ātōlli, a gruel of nixtamalized maize, was considered a meal or not. Drinking a good amount of the thicker kinds of ātōlli could equal the calories in several corn tortillas, and ātōlli was consumed on a daily basis by most of the population.Feasts
Many accounts exist of Aztec feasts and banquets and the ceremony that surrounded them. Before a meal, servants presented fragrant tobacco tubes and sometimes also flowers with which the guests could rub their head, hands, and neck. Before the meal would start each guest would drop a little food on the ground as an offering to the god Tlaltecuhtli.As military prowess was highly praised among the Aztecs, table manners imitated the movement of warriors. The smoking tubes and flowers went from the left hand of the servant to the right hand of the guest and the plate accompanying the smoking tube went from the right hand to the left hand.
This was an imitation of how a warrior received his atlatl darts and shield. The flowers passed out bore different names depending on how they were handed out; "sword flowers" went from left hand to hand to left. When eating, guests would hold their individual bowls filled with dipping sauce in the center of the right hand and then dip corn tortillas or tamales with the left. The meal was concluded by serving chocolate, often served in a calabash cup along with a stirring stick.
Rich hosts could often receive guests sitting in rooms around an open courtyard similar to Caravanserais and senior military men would perform dances. Festivities would begin at midnight and some would drink chocolate and eat hallucinogenic mushrooms so that they could tell about their experiences and visions to the other guests.
Right before dawn singing commenced and offerings were burned and buried in the courtyard to ensure the fortune of the children of the hosts. At dawn, the remaining flowers, smoking tubes and food were given to the old and poor that had been invited, or to the servants.
As with all other aspects of life, the Aztecs stressed the dual nature of all things, and toward the end of the banquet the host would be sternly reminded by his elders of his own mortality and that he should not be overcome with pride.
Domestic feasts
The Aztecs private feasts included music singing, storytelling, dancing, incense burning, flowers, tobacco, offerings, and gift-giving. Aztec feasts were a display of material culture and wealth—notes by Friar Bernardino de Sahagún and Friar Diego Durán describe Aztec feasts as events where "everything was to be created in abundance". Feasts were organized to the point of ritual, there were roles and relationships displayed and reinforced. Hosts needed to meet the obligations of banqueting, in order not to "offend" their guests, and guests needed to reinforce the hosts' stature.There are multiple important events in Aztec society that called for feasts. Child naming ceremonies involved the ritual calling out of the baby's name and progressed into a large organized feast. This feast could consist of dressed bird or dog, meat and/or maize tamales, beans, cacao bean, and roasted chillis.
Izcalli child presentation ceremonies were also important, part of the Aztec agricultural calendar. Izcalli was the last month of the calendar. Every fourth Izcalli celebration included the introduction of children, born during this four-year period, to the Aztec community. This feast introduced the child to actions important to their religious life such as singing, dancing, ceremonial drinking, sacrificial bloodletting, and body modification.
The food served during this feast was traditionally spicy. Noted by Sahagun was: "And the sauce of the tamales was called 'red chilli sauce'. And when the good common folk ate, they sat about sweating, they sat about burning themselves. And the tamales stuffed with greens were indeed hot, gleaming hot." The wedding process also contained many ceremonies, the parents of a young male, when marriage was desired, had to ask permission of his calmecac school leaders.
Part of this process was a feast of tamales, chocolate, and sauces. During the wedding itself, there were feasts of pulque, tamales, and turkey meat. Funerary feasts were also common among the wealthy class. Served at these feasts was octli, chocolate, bird, fruit, seeds, and other foods.
Public feasts
Parts of the 260-day ritual calendar of the Aztecs were veintena. Veintena can be approximated as months, however, they are more aptly described as 20-day public ceremony periods. Each 20-day veintena was a full and complex festival made up of ceremonies dedicated to specific gods and deities of the current veintena.Regional and local ceremonies differed in deities and methods from the official state-sponsored ones at Tenochtitlan. Food was an important part of veintena ceremonies; it was both consumed and adorned by priests. It was noted that during the ceremonies honoring Xipe Totec the priests would adorn themselves in arrays of "butterfly nets, fish banners, ear of maize, coyote heads made of amaranth seed, tortillas, thick rolls covered with a dough of amaranth seeds, toasted maize, red amaranth, and maize stalks with ears of green or tender maize."
In the ceremonies honouring Mixcoatl, after a "great hunt," Aztecs would feast on deer, rabbit, and all other animals killed in the hunt. Hunting was also important to celebrations dedicated to Xiuhtecuhtli when Aztec boys and young men would hunt for ten days. The products of these hunts would then be turned over to priests, who cooked them in large fire flies.
Food preparation
The main method of preparation was boiling or steaming in two-handled clay pots or jars called xoctli in Nahuatl and translated into Spanish as olla. Ceramics were vital to the cooking process and served at least three major purposes: nixtamal preparation, tamale steaming, and cooking beans, stews, and hot beverages. The xoctli was filled with food and heated over a fire. It could also be used to steam food by pouring a little water into the xoctli and then placing tamales wrapped in maize husks on a light structure of twigs in the middle of the pot.Tortillas, tamales, casseroles and the sauces that went with them were the most common dishes. Chili and salt were both ubiquitous and the most basic meal was usually just corn tortillas that were dipped in chilis that had been ground in a mortar with a little water. The dough could be used to encase meat, sometimes even whole turkeys, before cooking.
In major Aztec towns and cities there were vendors that sold street food of all kinds, catering to both the rich and poor. Other than ingredients and prepared food every imaginable type of ātōlli could be bought, either to quench one's thirst or as an instant meal in liquid form.
Women, in charge of domestic duties in Aztec societies, were also the cooks. Generally, men did not directly participate in cooking. Based on where cooking tools are usually found, it seems that kitchens were a simple, single-room structure separate from the house itself. Most cooking probably took place on a small triangular hearth in the kitchen.