How Did Rice Come To Be Such An Important Ingredient In Mexican Cooking
Posted on 03. Nov, 2009 by KC Kudra in Diet & Nutrition
One of the most widely grown crops in the world, rice is the most important dietary staple in much of the world. It is actually the most commonly eaten grain on earth and is the basis of the traditional diet in eastern and southeastern Asia, much of Africa, the Caribbean and the region known as Latin America, spanning South, Central, and parts of North America. While rice is grown in the US and is indeed a common food here, it is in Mexico that North America can be said to truly have a culinary tradition including rice in an important role. It is second only to corn in its importance to Mexican cooking and there are far too many Mexican rice recipes to list here.
Even though it may seem like rice has always been there, it is one of the more recent ingredients used in Mexican cuisine, having arrived in the new world with Spanish and Portuguese colonists, along with beef, cheese and old world spices like cumin – all of which are now part and parcel of the country’s culinary heritage. Many of Mexico’s traditional rice recipes date back to shortly after the first rice crops were grown in the country.
Authentic Mexican Rice Recipes
One of the best known of all Mexican rice recipes also happens to be a classic Mexican chicken recipe. Arroz con pollo or rice with chicken is Mexico’s own unique version of this popular combination of ingredients. If you have gotten tired of the American version using cream of mushroom soup, give this traditional Mexican rice recipe a try next time.
Arroz con pollo is an excellent example of how recipes, which originated in Spain became Mexican recipes through adaptation to use locally available ingredients as well as to work in flavors and ingredients, which became popular with the European settlers. In the case of this recipe, tomatoes found their way in to the cooking pot, as did the more assertive Mexican oregano as a substitute for the European variety, which was unavailable in the country.
Spanish Cuisine Adapts To The New World
Once rice was introduced to the Americas, cooks began adapting Spanish recipes to the ingredients, which were locally available. Before long, many of these dishes became traditional Mexican rice recipes. For instance, paella. We usually think of this dish as being the epitome of Spanish cooking, but it is a certainty that in Mexico, cooks were making rice and seafood meals which predated its arrival in Valencia.
Not only is the tomato often featured in Spanish paella from the Americas, but also bell peppers, another new world crop are also often used. Here you have an example of the cuisines of Spain and Mexico having a sort of conversation with each other across the Atlantic Ocean, with European cooks finding the new vegetables and fruits from the Americas valuable additions to their own recipes and the people of Mexico making the ingredients and recipes of Europe their own.
Lightly seasoned Mexican rice is another of the better-known Mexican rice recipes. This rice is served as a complement to a wide variety of Mexican dishes, particularly beans. This is a dish, which is quite similar to Spanish rice; and just as with paella, this rice actually contains some new world ingredients.
Rice is an incredibly important ingredient in the Mexican pantry; this oldest of old world staples has become as essential to the Mexican diet as it is in Asia, Africa and much of the rest of the globe. Like many of the ingredients introduced by Europeans and later waves of immigrants to Mexico. it has been welcomed with open arms, combined with the native ingredients of the Americas, and become something all its own – from Mexican rice recipes to soups, which include this grain, Mexican food, is a distinct cuisine unto itself and rice has been a big part of its development.
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