Fresh fruits and vegetables are an integral part of everyday eating in Mexico, Fruits — beautifully sliced and seasoned — are sold on the Mexican street as snacks. And vegetables, besides being used in Mexican sauces, stews, and garnishes, are also eaten as snacks throughout the day.
Today is the start of National Vegetarian Week, where everyone is encouraged to enjoy a week of vibrant and varied meat-free meals; this makes me think about my ancestors, where they vegetarian?
Were Mayas and Aztecs vegetarians?
We Mexicans pride ourselves in using natural, from the earth, local ingredients that generations before us grew up using, in few words we love vegetables!!!.
Mexican food cuisine dates back almost 9000 years. Corn was the main staple of the pre-Colombian Mexican people. Locally grown and plentiful, they could take the corn and produce many food staples from it. It could be boiled and mashed and formed into tortillas or tamales, or used to produce flour for other foods such as breads (MexConnect, 2007).
Meat was scarce amongst the pre-Colombian Mexican people before the Spaniards arrived, therefore they relied mainly on a non-meat diet, using vegetables and fruits as main source of food, and used chilies and herbs in their cooking to add more flavour and spice to their dishes. Some specialist have even claim that Mayas and Aztecs used to have a full vegetarian diet until the age of 10 (Paper published by the International Vegetarian Union). Although there is not real evidence of this, I like the fact that Mexican food is full of great variety of fruit and vegetables enhance by the flavour delivered by chillies and spices.
National Vegetarian Week?
More and more people are going veggie for reasons of health, lifestyle choice and cost, to name a few. Whether becoming vegetarian for ‘Meat-free Monday’ or overhauling their whole diet, people are quickly realising that vegetarian food isn’t just stuffed peppers and platefuls of boring lentils.
So whether you’re a devoted meat eater, or toying with the idea of changing your diet, have a go at being vegetarian this week and try some new dishes to shake up your repertoire. Your plates will be bursting with colours and new flavours, and have plenty of health benefits too.
Try these if you need more inspiration:
[click on the photo to link to the recipe]….
