page_title: Latin American cuisine
section_title: Mexico
hierarchical_section_title: Latin American cuisine / Central America / Mexico
caption_attribution_description: English: Chiles en nogada is a dish from Mexican cuisine. The name comes from the Spanish word for the walnut tree, nogal. It consists of poblano chiles filled with "picadillo" (a mixture usually containing chopped or ground meat, aromatics, fruits, and spices) topped with a walnut-based cream sauce and pomegranate seeds, giving it the three colors of the Mexican flag (red, green, and white).
context_page_description: Latin American cuisine is the typical foods, beverages, and cooking styles common to many of the countries and cultures in Latin America. Latin America is a highly diverse area of land whose nations have varying cuisines. Some items typical of Latin American cuisine include maize-based dishes arepas, pupusas, tacos, tamales, tortillas and various salsas and other condiments. Sofrito, a culinary term that originally referred to a specific combination of sautéed or braised aromatics, exists in Latin American cuisine. It refers to a sauce of tomatoes, roasted bell peppers, garlic, onions and herbs.
  Latin American beverages are just as distinct as their foods. Some of the beverages can even date back to the times of the Native Americans. Some popular beverages include coffee, mate, hibiscus tea, horchata, chicha, atole, cacao and aguas frescas.
  Desserts in Latin America are generally very sweet in taste. They include dulce de leche, alfajor, rice pudding, tres leches cake, teja and flan.
context_section_description: Mexican cuisine is a style of food which is primarily a fusion of indigenous Mesoamerican cooking with European (especially Spanish) cooking developed after the Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire. The basic staples remain the native corn, beans and chili peppers but the Europeans introduced a large number of other foods, the most important of which were meat from domesticated animals (beef, pork, chicken, goat and sheep), dairy products (especially cheese) and various herbs and spices.
  While the Spanish initially tried to superimpose their diet on the country, this was not possible thanks largely to Mexico's highly developed indigenous cuisines. Instead, the foods and cooking techniques of both the indigenous Mexicans and the Spanish began to be mixed contributing to the development of an even more varied and rich cuisine. Over the centuries, this resulted in various regional cuisines, based on local conditions such as those in the north, Oaxaca, Veracruz and the Yucatán Peninsula. Mexican cuisine is highly tied to the culture, social structure and its popular traditions, the most important example of which is the use of mole for special occasions and holidays, particularly in the South region of the country. For this reason and others, Mexican cuisine was added by UNESCO to its list of the world's "intangible cultural heritage".
  Mexican cuisine is known for its intense and varied flavors, colorful decoration, and enormous variety of spices. Mexican culture and food is one of the richest in the world, both with respect to diverse and appealing tastes and textures; and in terms of proteins, vitamins, and minerals.
  Most of today's Mexican cuisine is based on pre-Hispanic traditions, including the Aztecs, Maya, and the Indigenous peoples of Mexico combined with culinary trends introduced by Spanish colonists.
  Mexican-Americans in the United States have developed regional cuisines largely incorporating the ingredients and cooking styles of authentic Mexican cuisines. Tex-Mex is a term describing a regional American cuisine that blends food products available in the United States and the culinary creations of Mexican-Americans influenced by Mexican cuisine. The cuisine has spread from border states such as Texas and those in the Southwestern United States to the rest of the country. Tex-Mex is very different from the Southwest cuisine found in Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, and Utah. In these areas, the preferred southwest cuisine is New Mexican cuisine, also heavily influenced by authentic Mexican cuisine. The southwestern state of Nevada and West Coast state of California (which is home to Cal-Mex cuisine) tend to lie in the middle as far the preferred style of Mexican-American food. In some places, particularly outside of Texas, "Tex-Mex" is used to describe a localized version of Mexican cuisine. It is common for all of these foods to be referred to as "Mexican food" in Texas, other parts of the United States, and some other countries. In other ways, it is Southern cooking using the commodities from Mexican culture. In many parts of the U.S. outside of Texas the term is synonymous with Southwestern cuisine.
  Mexican cuisine is very well known outside of Mexico and features prominently in Latin America as a source of influence to many Latin American cuisines thanks enormously to the spread of crops originally from Mexico to other Latin American countries. Maize or corn, which originated in the highlands of the Mexican states of Oaxaca and Jalisco, is a staple in most Latin American cuisines today. The tomato, another crop with origins in Mexico is also widely consumed and incorporated in the cuisines of most Latin American countries. The Spanish are largely responsible for introducing indigenous Mexican crops to other regions worldwide.
  Mexican cuisine varies by region, because of local climate and geography and ethnic differences among the indigenous inhabitants and because these different populations were influenced by the Spaniards in varying degrees. There is also a variety of different chili peppers that are popular 
caption: Chiles en Nogada
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