Eating Aztec | RLA ASPIRE (2024)

by: smollbean

vegetables/grains

• in those days, (probably now too) they ate maize (aka corn) because it was the staple grain of that place. it has been domesticated for so many years
• they had a variety of food like, beans, squash, pumpkins chillies, tomatoes, limes, crashes, (sweet) potatoes, peanuts.
• there have so many other things, but this are just a few of what they ate.

chocolate

• one of the best gifts Mexico got is chocolate. cocoa beans back then was highly treasured in the Aztec empire. they even used it as currency, food, or in this case, drink
• it was made into a thick chocolate drink, but since they didn’t use sugar, they added peppers, corn meals and spices. you can find a similar version in Mexico today known as atole.
• champurrado ○ when you put piloncillo, (unrefined sugar) in atole, it changes into champurrado.

We decided to make a version of Aztec Chocolate Drink.

Here we are drinking our not so authentic Aztec Hot Chocolate. We even made homemade whipping cream.

After researching a variety of recipes for Aztec Hot Chocolate the team decided to make a chocolate syrup with water to taste how bitter the authentic drink would be. We tasted a homemade corn (maize) tortilla and decided to leave out the corn puree. We added the chocolate syrup to the milk and spiced it with peppers (chili peppers, cayenne peppers, guajillo). It was fun exploring the interesting flavours.

How AZTEC Chocolate Drink Was Different …

• The Aztecs made a cold chocolate drink by adding water to cocoa (no milk)
• No sugar was added, but instead they added other flavours or spices (vanilla, cinnamon and peppers).
• The cold chocolate drink was a bitter liquid, mixed with spices and corn meal mush..

• avacados were known as a fertility fruit to the Aztecs. The name of avacados were from the Nahuatl word ahuacatl, literally meaning “testicl*.”
• prickly pears are fruits from cactus’
• guayaba comes from the guava tree, named xalcocotlby the Aztecs.
• sapote is from a group of fruits that come from the white sapote fruit tree.

meat

• a breed of hairless dogs was kept for it’s meat specifically.(it’s also similar to the Peruvian Hairless Dog)
• muscovy ducks are semi-domesticated ducks.
• although bees are not used for meat, Aztecs domesticated them for their honey.
• they bred rabbits in captivity and hunted them in the wild
• wild animals like armadillos, iguanas, mica, possums, wild boars, gophers, snakes, wild snakes, and peccary.
• turkeys were sold all across the Aztec Empire. as said by Dirk R. Van Tuerenhout from The Aztecs: New Perspectives, “The turkey was the only true domesticated fowl in Mesopotamia.”

Food Sources from Lake Texcoco

SOURCES:

History of chocolate

Food Timeline FAQs: Aztec

Aztec-History.com Aztec Food

Aztec Food – What Did the Aztecs Eat?

Aztec Empire: Everyday Foods and Feasts

Aztec Food