1.
Tamale, Ghana
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Tamale, officially called Tamale Metropolitan Area, is the capital town of the Northern Region of Ghana. It has a 2013 projected population of 360,579 according to the 2010 census, and the fastest-growing city in West Africa. The town is located 600 km north of Accra, most residents of Tamale are Muslims, as reflected by the multitude of mosques in Tamale, most notably the Central Mosque. The Sunnis and the Ahmadiyyans also have their own central mosques, Tamale is located in Northern region and more precisely in the Kingdom of Dagbon. The local chiefs and the chief of Tamale are subservient to the Dagomba Paramount Chief in Yendi. The centre of Tamale hosts regional branches of financial institutions and a number of international nongovernmental organisations. Tamale has developed and transformed significantly in the last few years, the new dimension of Tamales development is the rush by various companies to open branches in Tamale. The hospitality industry has grown significantly, with new hotels and guest houses built around Tamale, Tamale grew from a conglomeration of towns where one could find an architectural blend of traditional mud houses and more modern buildings. Tamales new and modern facilities include the newly constructed Tamale Stadium, replacing the former principal football pitch, Kaladan Park. Indeed, many improvements to Tamales infrastructure occurred in the leading up to the 2008 African Cup of Nations tournament. Further improvements were made, particularly to Tamales road system, upon arriving in the city, one will be quick to notice that the roads of the city are occupied with motorcycles with mapukas being the most patronised. This, however, does not interfere with the smooth flow of traffic on the major roads of the city. Tamale is located on the crossing of three ancient trade routes, it started to grow as a centre for the Northern region centuries ago. The north-south road from Paga and Bolgatanga to Salaga had raiders passing, salt came from Daboya, to the north-west of Tamale, and followed a road that continued to Yendi. A third road linked Gushegu to the capital of the Gonja kingdom, the present locations of the central market and the palace of the Gulkpe naa, opposite Barclays Bank and near the library, mark the junctions of the ancient roads. Around this palace, a residential neighbourhood began to grow and it is now known as Dagbangdabi-Fong. This was followed by Changli, Belipiela, and BuglanaFong further to the south, each neighbourhood got its own local chief. As the distances to the place grew, people started to settle elsewhere around the crossing, so the quarters of Tishigu
2.
Oaxaca
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Oaxaca, officially the Free and Sovereign State of Oaxaca, is one of the 31 states which, along with the Federal District, make up the 32 federative entities of Mexico. It is divided into 570 municipalities, of which 418 are governed by the system of Usos y costumbres with recognized forms of self governance. Its capital city is Oaxaca de Juárez, Oaxaca is located in Southwestern Mexico. It is bordered by the states of Guerrero to the west, Puebla to the northwest, Veracruz to the north, to the south, Oaxaca has a significant coastline on the Pacific Ocean. The state is best known for its indigenous peoples and cultures, the most numerous and best known are the Zapotecs and the Mixtecs, but there are sixteen that are officially recognized. These cultures have survived better than most others in Mexico due to the states rugged, most live in the Central Valleys region, which is also an important area for tourism, attracting people for its archeological sites such as Monte Albán, native culture and crafts. Another important tourist area is the coast, which has the major resort of Huatulco, Oaxaca is also one of the most biologically diverse states in Mexico, ranking in the top three, along with Chiapas and Veracruz, for numbers of reptiles, amphibians, mammals and plants. The name of the state comes from the name of its capital city and this name comes from the Nahuatl word Huaxyacac, which refers to a tree called a guaje found around the capital city. The name was applied to the Valley of Oaxaca by Nahuatl-speaking Aztecs. The modern state was created in 1824, and the seal was designed by Alfredo Canseco Feraud. Nahuatl word Huaxyacac was transliterated as Oaxaca using Medieval Spanish orthography, in which the x represented the voiceless postalveolar fricative, however, during the sixteenth century the voiceless fricative sound evolved into a voiceless velar fricative, and Oaxaca began to be pronounced. Most of what is known about pre-historic Oaxaca comes from work in the Central Valleys region, evidence of human habitation dating back to about 11,000 years BC has been found in the Guilá Naquitz cave near the town of Mitla. More finds of nomadic peoples date back to about 5000 BC, by 2000 BC, agriculture had been established in the Central Valleys region of the state, with sedentary villages. The diet developed around this time would remain until the Spanish Conquest, consisting primarily of harvested corn, beans, chocolate, tomatoes, chili peppers, squash, meat was generally hunted and included tepescuintle, turkey, deer, peccary, armadillo and iguana. The oldest known settlements, such as Yanhuitlán and Laguna Zope are located in this area as well. The latter settlement is known for its small figures called pretty women or baby face, between 1200 and 900 BC, pottery was being produced in the area as well. This pottery has been linked with work done in La Victoria. Other important settlements from the time period include Tierras Largas, San José Mogote and Guadalupe
3.
Mole sauce
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Mole is the generic name for a number of sauces originally used in Mexican cuisine, as well as for dishes based on these sauces. Outside Mexico, it refers specifically to mole poblano. In contemporary Mexico, the term is used for a number of sauces, some quite dissimilar, including black, red/colorado, yellow, green, almendrado, de olla, huaxmole, generally, a mole sauce contains a fruit, chili pepper, and nut. Three states in Mexico claim to be the origin of mole, Puebla, Oaxaca, the states with the best known moles are Puebla and Oaxaca, but other regions in Mexico also make various types of mole sauces. Moles come in flavors and ingredients, with chili peppers as the common factor. However, the classic version is the variety called mole poblano. The dish has become a symbol of Mexico’s mestizaje, or mixed indigenous and European heritage. A common legend of its creation takes place at the Convent of Santa Rosa in Puebla early in the colonial period, upon hearing that the archbishop was going to visit, the convent nuns went into a panic because they were poor and had almost nothing to prepare. The nuns prayed and brought together the little bits of what they did have, including peppers, spices, day-old bread, nuts. They killed an old turkey, cooked it and put the sauce on top, when one of the nuns was asked the name of the dish, she replied, I made a mole. Mole was the ancient word for mix, now this word refers to the dish. A similar version of the story says that monk Fray Pascual invented the dish, in this version, spices were knocked over or blown over into pots in which turkeys were cooking. Other versions of the story substitute the viceroy of New Spain, modern mole is a mixture of ingredients from North America, Europe and Africa, making it the first international dish created in the Americas. Nahuatl speakers had a preparation they called mōlli, meaning sauce, in the book General History of the Things of New Spain, Bernardino de Sahagún says that mollis were used in a number of dishes, including those for fish, game and vegetables. While chili pepper sauces existed in pre-Hispanic Mexico, the moles of today did not. They did not contain chocolate, which was used as a beverage, most likely what occurred was a gradual modification of the original molli sauce, adding more and different ingredients depending on the location. This diversified the resulting sauces into various types, ingredients that have been added into moles include nuts, seeds, cilantro, seedless grapes, plantains, garlic, onions, cinnamon, and chocolate. What remained the same was the use of peppers, especially ancho, pasilla, mulato and chipotle
4.
Mesoamerica
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It is one of six areas in the world where ancient civilization arose independently, and the second in the Americas along with Norte Chico in present-day northern coastal Peru. As a cultural area, Mesoamerica is defined by a mosaic of cultural traits developed and shared by its indigenous cultures, while Mesoamerican civilization did know of the wheel and basic metallurgy, neither of these technologies became culturally important. Among the earliest complex civilizations was the Olmec culture, which inhabited the Gulf coast of Mexico and extended inland, frequent contact and cultural interchange between the early Olmec and other cultures in Chiapas, Guatemala and Oaxaca laid the basis for the Mesoamerican cultural area. All this was facilitated by considerable regional communications in ancient Mesoamerica and this Formative period saw the spread of distinct religious and symbolic traditions, as well as artistic and architectural complexes. In the subsequent Preclassic period, complex urban polities began to develop among the Maya, with the rise of such as El Mirador, Calakmul and Tikal. Mesoamerica is one of three regions of the world where writing is known to have independently developed. Upon the collapse of Teotihuacán around AD600, competition between several important political centers in central Mexico, such as Xochicalco and Cholula, ensued. During the early period, Central Mexico was dominated by the Toltec culture, Oaxaca by the Mixtec. Towards the end of the period, the Aztecs of Central Mexico built a tributary empire covering most of central Mesoamerica. The distinct Mesoamerican cultural tradition ended with the Spanish conquest in the 16th century, over the next centuries, Mesoamerican indigenous cultures were gradually subjected to Spanish colonial rule. The exact geographic extent of Mesoamerica has varied through time, as the civilization extended North and South from its heartland in southern Mexico, Mesoamerica is recognized as a near-prototypical cultural area, and the term is now fully integrated in the standard terminology of pre-Columbian anthropological studies. Conversely, the sister terms Aridoamerica and Oasisamerica, which refer to northern Mexico, 10° and 22° northern latitude, Mesoamerica possesses a complex combination of ecological systems, topographic zones, and environmental contexts. A main distinction groups these different niches into two categories, the lowlands and the altiplanos, or highlands. In the low-lying regions, sub-tropical and tropical climates are most common, as is true for most of the coastline along the Pacific and Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean Sea. The highlands show much more diversity, ranging from dry tropical to cold mountainous climates. The rainfall varies from the dry Oaxaca and north Yucatan to the humid southern Pacific, several distinct sub-regions within Mesoamerica are defined by a convergence of geographic and cultural attributes. These sub-regions are more conceptual than culturally meaningful, and the demarcation of their limits is not rigid, the Maya area, for example, can be divided into two general groups, the lowlands and highlands. The lowlands are further divided into the southern and northern Maya lowlands, the southern Maya lowlands are generally regarded as encompassing northern Guatemala, southern Campeche and Quintana Roo in Mexico, and Belize
5.
North America
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North America is a continent entirely within the Northern Hemisphere and almost all within the Western Hemisphere. It can also be considered a subcontinent of the Americas. It is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the west and south by the Pacific Ocean, and to the southeast by South America and the Caribbean Sea. North America covers an area of about 24,709,000 square kilometers, about 16. 5% of the land area. North America is the third largest continent by area, following Asia and Africa, and the fourth by population after Asia, Africa, and Europe. In 2013, its population was estimated at nearly 565 million people in 23 independent states, or about 7. 5% of the worlds population, North America was reached by its first human populations during the last glacial period, via crossing the Bering land bridge. The so-called Paleo-Indian period is taken to have lasted until about 10,000 years ago, the Classic stage spans roughly the 6th to 13th centuries. The Pre-Columbian era ended with the migrations and the arrival of European settlers during the Age of Discovery. Present-day cultural and ethnic patterns reflect different kind of interactions between European colonists, indigenous peoples, African slaves and their descendants, European influences are strongest in the northern parts of the continent while indigenous and African influences are relatively stronger in the south. Because of the history of colonialism, most North Americans speak English, Spanish or French, the Americas are usually accepted as having been named after the Italian explorer Amerigo Vespucci by the German cartographers Martin Waldseemüller and Matthias Ringmann. Vespucci, who explored South America between 1497 and 1502, was the first European to suggest that the Americas were not the East Indies, but a different landmass previously unknown by Europeans. In 1507, Waldseemüller produced a map, in which he placed the word America on the continent of South America. He explained the rationale for the name in the accompanying book Cosmographiae Introductio, for Waldseemüller, no one should object to the naming of the land after its discoverer. He used the Latinized version of Vespuccis name, but in its feminine form America, following the examples of Europa, Asia and Africa. Later, other mapmakers extended the name America to the continent, In 1538. Some argue that the convention is to use the surname for naming discoveries except in the case of royalty, a minutely explored belief that has been advanced is that America was named for a Spanish sailor bearing the ancient Visigothic name of Amairick. Another is that the name is rooted in a Native American language, the term North America maintains various definitions in accordance with location and context. In Canadian English, North America may be used to refer to the United States, alternatively, usage sometimes includes Greenland and Mexico, as well as offshore islands
6.
Maize
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Maize, also known as corn, is a large grain plant first domesticated by indigenous peoples in Mexico about 10,000 years ago. The six major types of corn are dent corn, flint corn, pod corn, popcorn, flour corn, the leafy stalk of the plant produces separate pollen and ovuliferous inflorescences or ears, which are fruits, yielding kernels or seeds. Maize kernels are used in cooking as a starch. Most historians believe maize was domesticated in the Tehuacan Valley of Mexico, recent research modified this view somewhat, scholars now indicate the adjacent Balsas River Valley of south-central Mexico as the center of domestication. The Olmec and Mayans cultivated maize in numerous varieties throughout Mesoamerica, cooked and its believed that beginning about 2500 BC, the crop spread through much of the Americas. The region developed a network based on surplus and varieties of maize crops. Nevertheless, recent data indicates that the spread of maize took place even earlier, according to Piperno, A large corpus of data indicates that it was dispersed into lower Central America by 7600 BP and had moved into the inter-Andean valleys of Colombia between 7000 and 6000 BP. Since then, even earlier dates have been published, the study also demonstrated that the oldest surviving maize types are those of the Mexican highlands. Later, maize spread from this region over the Americas along two major paths and this is consistent with a model based on the archaeological record suggesting that maize diversified in the highlands of Mexico before spreading to the lowlands. Before they were domesticated, maize plants only grew small,25 millimetres long corn cobs, Maize is the most widely grown grain crop throughout the Americas, with 361 million metric tons grown in the United States in 2014. Approximately 40% of the crop—130 million tons—is used for corn ethanol, genetically modified maize made up 85% of the maize planted in the United States in 2009. After the arrival of Europeans in 1492, Spanish settlers consumed maize and explorers and traders carried it back to Europe, Spanish settlers far preferred wheat bread to maize, cassava, or potatoes. Maize flour could not be substituted for wheat for bread, since in Christian belief only wheat could undergo transubstantiation. At another level, Spaniards worried that by eating indigenous foods, which they did not consider nutritious, that not only would they weaken, despite these worries, Spaniards did consume maize and archeological evidence from Florida sites indicate they cultivated it as well. Maize spread to the rest of the world because of its ability to grow in diverse climates and it was cultivated in Spain just a few decades after Columbuss voyages and then spread to Italy, West Africa and elsewhere. The word maize derives from the Spanish form of the indigenous Taíno word for the plant and it is known by other names around the world. The word corn outside North America, Australia, and New Zealand refers to any cereal crop, in the United States, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, corn primarily means maize, this usage started as a shortening of Indian corn. Indian corn primarily means maize, but can more specifically to multicolored flint corn used for decoration
7.
Masa
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Although the word is mostly used to refer to any kind of dough, in some regions it is often short for masa de maíz, a maize dough made from freshly prepared hominy. It is used for making tortillas, tamales, pupusas. The dried and powdered form is called masa harina, masa de harina, and sometimes Maseca and it is reconstituted with water before use. Masa is not to be confused with masarepa, masa de arepa, or masa al instante, a type of unnixtamalized, soaked, masa de trigo is Spanish for wheat flour dough. It is also used for making wheat tortillas and other breads, to make hominy, field corn grain is dried and then treated by soaking and cooking the mature grain in a diluted solution of slaked lime or wood ash, a process termed nixtamalization. Some of the oil is broken down into emulsifying agents. The divalent calcium in lime acts as a agent for protein. Finally, in addition to providing a source of dietary calcium, while consumption of untreated corn is a risk factor in predisposition to pellagra, as in African countries, the risk is dramatically reduced or eliminated by nixtamalization. The soaked maize is washed, and then ground into masa, when fresh masa is dried and powdered, it becomes masa seca or masa harina. The process of making hominy is also called nixtamalization and the product can be called masa nixtamalera. In Central American and Mexican cuisine, masa nixtamalera is cooked with water and milk to make a thick, when made with chocolate and sugar, it becomes atole de chocolate. Adding anise and piloncillo to this mix creates champurrado, a popular breakfast drink
8.
Banana leaf
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Banana leaves have a wide range of applications because they are large, flexible, waterproof and decorative. They are used for cooking, wrapping and food-serving in a range of cuisines in tropical and subtropical areas. They are used for decorative and symbolic purposes in numerous Hindu, in traditional homebuilding in tropical areas, roofs and fences are made with dry banana-leaf thatch. Banana and palm leaves were historically the primary writing surfaces in many nations of South, Banana leaves are large, flexible, and waterproof. They impart an aroma to food that is cooked in or served on them, steaming with banana leaves imparts a subtle sweet flavor, the leaves are not themselves eaten and are discarded after the contents are consumed. Besides adding flavor, the leaves keep juices in and protect food from burning, in Tamil Nadu leaves are fully dried and used as packing material for foodstuffs, and are also made into cups to hold liquids. The dried leaves are called Vaazhai-ch- charugu in Tamil, some South Indian, Filipino and Khmer recipes use banana leaves as a wrapper for frying. In Vietnamese cuisine, banana leaves are used to wrap foods such as cha-lua, South Indian cuisine is usually served on a banana leaf. Especially in the South Indian states of Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Kerala, on any festive occasion the food must be served on or in a banana leaf, and a banana is part of the food served. In Maharashtra, on special occasions like Ganesh chaturthi, people eat off banana leaves. The banana leaf is used for wrapping fish, which can then be steamed. In Bengali cuisine, banana leaf is used to prepare Paturi, commonly, Bhetki and Ilish are used in making Paturi. In Indonesian cuisine, banana leaf is employed in cooking methods called pepes and botok, Banana leaves are also used to wrap several kinds of snacks kue, such as nagasari or kue pisang and otak-otak, and also to wrap pressed sticky-rice delicacies such as lemper and lontong. In Java, banana leaf is used as a shallow conical bowl called pincuk, usually to serve rujak tumbuk. The pincuk secured with lidi semat, the pincuk fit in the left palm, while the right hand is used to consume the food. It also functions as a traditional disposable take-away food container, the cleaned banana leaf is often used as a placemat, cut banana-leaf sheets placed on rattan, bamboo or clay plates are used to serve food. Decorated and folded banana leaves on woven bamboo plates are used as serving trays, tumpeng rice cones, in Malaysian and Singapore cuisine, banana leaves are used to wrap certain kuih and otak-otak. Malay foods such as nasi lemak are also wrapped with banana leaves before being wrapped with newspaper
9.
Husk
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Husk in botany is the outer shell or coating of a seed. It often refers to the outer covering of an ear of maize as it grows on the plant. Literally, a husk or hull includes the outer covering of a seed. It can also refer to the exuvia of bugs or small animals left behind after moulting, in cooking, hull can also refer to other waste parts of fruits and vegetables, notably the cap or sepal of a strawberry. The husk of a legume and some similar fruits is called a pod, plantago-seed mucilage is often referred to as husk, or psyllium husk. Crop plants of species have been selected that have hulless seeds, including pumpkins, oats. Husking of corn is the process of removing its outer layers, dehulling is the process of removing the hulls from beans and other seeds. This is sometimes done using a known as a huller. To prepare the seeds to have extracted from them, they are cleaned to remove any foreign objects. Next, the seeds have their hulls, or outer coverings, or husk, there are three different types of dehulling systems that can be used to process soybeans, Hot dehulling, warm dehulling and cold dehulling. Hot dehulling is the system offered in areas where beans are processed directly from the field, warm dehulling is often used by processors who import their soybeans. Cold dehulling is used in plants that have existing drying and conditioning equipment, the different dehulling temperature options are for different types of production, beans and preparation equipment. In third-world countries, husking and dehulling is often done by hand using a large mortar. These are usually made of wood, and operated by one or more people, the husk is biodegradable and may be composted. Chaff Gum Horsebread, a type of bread in which the chaff is not removed Rice hulls Rice pounder Threshing Winnowing
10.
Humita
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Humita is a Native American dish from pre-Hispanic times, and a traditional food in Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Ecuador and Peru, although their origin is unclear. In Argentina, Chile, Ecuador and Peru they are known as humitas, in Bolivia as humintas, in Brazil as pamonha and it consists of masa harina and corn, slowly steamed or boiled in a pot of water. In Argentina, humitas are prepared with corn, sautéed onions and some spices. The dough is wrapped in corn husks and boiled and it is also common to add some diced cheese to the dough, typically queso fresco or goat cheese. In Argentina, the term also refers to the creamy-corn filling of an empanada Humitas in Chile are prepared with fresh corn, onion, basil. They are wrapped in corn husks and baked or boiled, the humitas are kept together during cooking with thread or twine. They can be savory, sweet, or sweet and sour, served with added sugar, chile pepper, salt, tomato, olive. As in Chile, Ecuadorian humitas are prepared with ground corn with onions, eggs and spices that vary from region to region. The dough is wrapped in a husk, but is steamed rather than baked or boiled. Ecuadorian humitas may also contain cheese and this dish is so traditional in Ecuador that they have developed special pots just for cooking humitas. Ecuadorian humitas can be salty or sweet, savory humitas may also be prepared with anise. These are typically very rare in other parts of South America. These humitas are prepared with corn wrapped in corn husks and can be cooked in boiling water, placed in a pachamanca oven and they can be wrapped in several ways. Hallacas Tamales Sarmales Pamonhas Pasteles Tayullos
11.
Pamonha
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Pamonha is a traditional Brazilian food. It is a made from sweet corn, boiled wrapped in corn husks. Pamonha can be savoury or sweet, if savoury, they can be filled with cheese, sausage, minced meat, minced chicken or peppers. If sweet, ground coconut pulp is a common addition when there is one and it is associated with Festa Junina winter celebrations. The name pamonha comes from Old Tupi language pamuña meaning sticky, in Brazilian slang, the word pamonha is also used as a pejorative meaning lazy or foolish. List of Brazilian dishes Tamales, a dish made from a type of dry corn flour Zongzi, from China Chimaki. Curso de Comunicação Social/Universidade de Uberaba
12.
Spanish language
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Spanish —also called Castilian —is a Romance language that originated in the Castile region of Spain, with hundreds of millions of native speakers around the world. It is usually considered the worlds second-most spoken native language after Mandarin Chinese and it is one of the few languages to use inverted question and exclamation marks. Spanish is a part of the Ibero-Romance group of languages, which evolved from several dialects of Vulgar Latin in Iberia after the collapse of the Western Roman Empire in the 5th century. Beginning in the early 16th century, Spanish was taken to the colonies of the Spanish Empire, most notably to the Americas, as well as territories in Africa, Oceania, around 75% of modern Spanish is derived from Latin. Greek has also contributed substantially to Spanish vocabulary, especially through Latin, Spanish vocabulary has been in contact from an early date with Arabic, having developed during the Al-Andalus era in the Iberian Peninsula. With around 8% of its vocabulary being Arabic in origin, this language is the second most important influence after Latin and it has also been influenced by Basque as well as by neighboring Ibero-Romance languages. It also adopted words from languages such as Gothic language from the Visigoths in which many Spanish names and surnames have a Visigothic origin. Spanish is one of the six languages of the United Nations. It is the language in the world by the number of people who speak it as a mother tongue, after Mandarin Chinese. It is estimated more than 437 million people speak Spanish as a native language. Spanish is the official or national language in Spain, Equatorial Guinea, speakers in the Americas total some 418 million. In the European Union, Spanish is the tongue of 8% of the population. Spanish is the most popular second language learned in the United States, in 2011 it was estimated by the American Community Survey that of the 55 million Hispanic United States residents who are five years of age and over,38 million speak Spanish at home. The Spanish Constitution of 1978 uses the term castellano to define the language of the whole Spanish State in contrast to las demás lenguas españolas. Article III reads as follows, El castellano es la lengua española oficial del Estado, las demás lenguas españolas serán también oficiales en las respectivas Comunidades Autónomas. Castilian is the official Spanish language of the State, the other Spanish languages as well shall be official in their respective Autonomous Communities. The Spanish Royal Academy, on the hand, currently uses the term español in its publications. Two etymologies for español have been suggested, the Spanish Royal Academy Dictionary derives the term from the Provençal word espaignol, and that in turn from the Medieval Latin word Hispaniolus, from—or pertaining to—Hispania
13.
Nahuatl languages
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The Nahuan or Aztecan languages are those languages of the Uto-Aztecan language family that have undergone a sound change, known as Whorfs Law, that changed an original *t to /tɬ/ before *a. Subsequently, some Nahuan languages have changed this /tɬ/ to /l/ or back to /t/, the best known Nahuan language is Nahuatl. As of 2008, the Mexican government recognizes thirty varieties that are spoken in Mexico as languages, Nahuan languages include not just varieties known as Nahuatl, but also Pipil and the extinct Pochutec language. The distinction between the Nahuatl and Pochutec is now thought to be due to contact, see Pochutec language for details. Thus, by that criterion, they could be considered different languages, the ISO divisions referenced below respond to intelligibility more than to historical or reconstructional considerations. Like the higher-level groupings, they also are not self-evident and are subject to considerable controversy and this binary division of Aztecan was already the majority opinion among specialists, but Campbell and Langackers new arguments were received as being compelling. Furthermore, in adopt the term General Aztec, they may in fact have been the ones to introduce this designation, part of their reconstruction of the Proto-Aztecan vowels was disputed by Dakin. She shows that verbs in -oa and -ia are historically and grammatically distinct from verbs in -iya and -owa and she also explains the historical development of the applicative suffix with the shape -lia and -lwia as coming from a single suffix of the shape -liwa. Dakin has proposed a historical internal classification of Nahuan, e. g. Dakin and she asserts two groups of migrations in central Mexico and eventually southwards to Central America. Centuries later, the group of migrations produced Western dialects. But many modern dialects are the result of blending between particular Eastern dialects and particular Western dialects, Campbell in his grammar of Pipil discussed the problem of classifying Pipil. Pipil is either a descendant of Nahuatl or still to this day a variety of Nahuatl, Dakin is a book-length study of the phonological evolution of Proto-Nahuatl. Dakin suggested that irregularities in the modern Nahuatl system of possessive prefixes might be due to the presence in Proto-Nahuan of distinct grammatical marking for two types of possession. In the 1990s, two papers appeared addressing the old problem of the saltillo in Nahuatl, a lost paper by Whorf. A Center-Periphery scheme was introduced by Canger in 1978, and supported by historical data in 1980. Lastra de Suarez dialect atlas that divided dialects into center and peripheral areas based on strictly synchronic evidence, the subsequent 1988 article by Canger adduced further historical evidence for this division. Until the middle of the 20th century, scholarship on Nahuan languages was limited almost entirely to the language that existed approximately 1540–1770. Since the 1930s, there have appeared several grammars of modern dialects
14.
Cheeses of Mexico
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Cheeses in Mexico have a history that begins with the Spanish conquest, as dairy products were unknown in pre-Columbian Mesoamerica. The Spanish brought dairy animals, such as cattle, sheep, over the colonial period, cheesemaking was modified to suit the mixed European and indigenous tastes of the inhabitants of New Spain, varying by region. This blending and variations have given rise to a number of varieties of Mexican cheeses and these are most popular in the country, although European cheeses are made, as well. Almost all cheese in Mexico is made with milk, with some made from goats’ milk. More recently, efforts have made to promote sheep’s milk cheeses. Most cheeses are made with raw milk, cheeses are made in the home, on small farms or ranches, and by major dairy product firms. Between 20 and 40 different varieties of cheese are made in Mexico, some, such as Oaxaca and panela, are made all over Mexico, but many are regional cheeses known only in certain sections on the country. Some of the least common are in danger of extinction, prior to the arrival of the Europeans, the Mesoamerican diet did not include dairy products, so cheese-making was unknown. The Spanish conquistadors brought cows, goats, and sheep to the New World, the Spanish also brought techniques to make cheeses from their homeland, such as manchego. Over time, the blending of European and indigenous peoples and traditions included the modification of cheeses to suit mestizo tastes and this adaptation varied from region to region, which has led to the variety of cheeses produced in Mexico today. Both are still major producers of cheese and other dairy products, today, major cheese-producing areas also include Chihuahua, Oaxaca, Querétaro, Aguascalientes, Jalisco, Guanajuato, San Luis Potosi, Michoacán, Puebla, Tlaxcala, Toluca and Chiapas. Despite centuries of cheesemaking experience, Mexico lags behind Europe in both quantity and variety, most cheeses made in the country are made by small concerns and farms which sell their products locally. While some cheeses, such as Chihuahua and panela, have become mass-produced and are made with pasteurized milk, Mexican cheeses are not standardized either by type, process or quality. Mexican and Mexican-style cheeses have become common on grocery shelves in the United States. Until recently, only the fairly common cheeses were available, mostly in Mexican restaurants, such as Cotija, sprinkled on top of certain dishes, and Oaxaca cheese, melted on tortillas. Now, companies in the US are recreating many of the fresh and aged cheeses from Mexico, Mexico is ranked 10th in the world for cheese production and eighth for consumption. Grouped with Argentina and Brazil, Mexico is part of a region which is third in production, behind Europe. Cheese sales in Mexico were 218,000 tons in 2003, with fresh cheeses making up over one-third of the market, only 126,200 tons of the cheese consumed in the country that year were produced domestically, with the rest imported
15.
Chili pepper
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The chili pepper is the fruit of plants from the genus Capsicum, members of the nightshade family, Solanaceae. In Australia, Britain, India, Ireland, New Zealand, Pakistan, South Africa and in other Asian countries, the substances that give chili peppers their intensity when ingested or applied topically are capsaicin and several related chemicals, collectively called capsaicinoids. After the Columbian Exchange, many cultivars of chili pepper spread across the world, chilies were brought to Asia by Portuguese navigators during the 16th century. Worldwide, some 3.8 million hectares of land produce 33 million tons of chili peppers, India is the worlds biggest producer, consumer and exporter of chili peppers. Guntur in the South Indian state of Andhra Pradesh produces 30% of all the chilies produced in India, Andhra Pradesh as a whole contributes 75% of Indias chili exports. Chili peppers have been a part of the diet in the Americas since at least 7500 BCE. Bolivia is considered to be the country where the largest diversity of wild Capsicum peppers are consumed, upon their introduction into Europe, chilies were grown as botanical curiosities in the gardens of Spanish and Portuguese monasteries. Chilies were cultivated around the globe after Indigenous people shared them with travelers, diego Álvarez Chanca, a physician on Columbus second voyage to the West Indies in 1493, brought the first chili peppers to Spain and first wrote about their medicinal effects in 1494. It was introduced in India by the Portuguese towards the end of 15th century, today chilies are an integral part of South Asian and Southeast Asian cuisines. There is a correlation between the chili pepper geographical dissemination and consumption in Asia and the presence of Portuguese traders, India. The chili pepper features heavily in the cuisine of the Goan region of India, Chili peppers journeyed from India, through Central Asia and Turkey, to Hungary, where they became the national spice in the form of paprika. To Japan, it was brought by the Portuguese missionaries in 1542, in 1995 archaeobotanist Hakon Hjelmqvist published an article in Svensk Botanisk Tidskrift claiming there was evidence for the presence of chili peppers in Europe in pre-Columbian times. According to Hjelmqvist, archaeologists at a dig in St Botulf in Lund found a Capsicum frutescens in a layer from the 13th century, Hjelmqvist thought it came from Asia. Hjelmqvist also said that Capsicum was described by the Greek Theophrastus in his Historia Plantarum, around the first century CE, the Roman poet Martialis mentioned Piperve crudum in Liber XI, XVIII, allegedly describing them as long and containing seeds. Green and red peppers, for example, are the same cultivar of C. annuum. In the same species are the jalapeño, the poblano, New Mexico, serrano, peppers are commonly broken down into three groupings, bell peppers, sweet peppers, and hot peppers. Most popular pepper varieties are seen as falling into one of these categories or as a cross between them, the substances that give chili peppers their intensity when ingested or applied topically are capsaicin and several related chemicals, collectively called capsaicinoids. Capsaicin is also the component in pepper spray, a less-than-lethal weapon
16.
Aztec
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The Aztec people were certain ethnic groups of central Mexico, particularly those groups who spoke the Nahuatl language and who dominated large parts of Mesoamerica from the 14th to 16th centuries. The Nahuatl words aztecatl and aztecah mean people from Aztlan, a place for the Nahuatl-speaking culture of the time. Often the term Aztec refers exclusively to the Mexica people of Tenochtitlan, situated on an island in Lake Texcoco, who referred to themselves as Mēxihcah Tenochcah or Cōlhuah Mexihcah. From the 13th century, the Valley of Mexico was the heart of Aztec civilization, here the capital of the Aztec Triple Alliance, the Triple Alliance formed a tributary empire expanding its political hegemony far beyond the Valley of Mexico, conquering other city states throughout Mesoamerica. At its pinnacle, Aztec culture had rich and complex mythological and religious traditions, as well as achieving remarkable architectural and artistic accomplishments. Subsequently, the Spanish founded the new settlement of Mexico City on the site of the ruined Aztec capital, the term extends to further ethnic groups associated with the Aztec empire such as the Acolhua and Tepanec and others that were incorporated into the empire. In older usage the term was used about modern Nahuatl speaking ethnic groups. In recent usage these ethnic groups are referred to as the Nahua peoples. Linguistically the term Aztecan is still used about the branch of the Uto-Aztecan languages that includes the Nahuatl language and its closest relatives Pochutec, to the Aztecs themselves the word aztec was not an endonym for any particular ethnic group. Rather it was a term used to refer to several ethnic groups, not all of them Nahuatl speaking. In the Nahuatl language aztecatl means person from Aztlan and this usage has been the subject of debate in more recent years, but the term Aztec is still more common. For the same reason the notion of Aztec civilization is best understood as a horizon of a general Mesoamerican civilization. Particular to the Aztecs of Tenochtitlan was the Mexica patron God Huitzilopochtli, twin pyramids, the Aztec Empire was a tribute empire based in Tenochtitlan that extended its power throughout Mesoamerica in the late postclassic period. Soon Texcoco and Tlacopan became junior partners in the alliance, which was de facto led by the Mexica of Tenochtitlan, the empire extended its power by a combination of trade and military conquest. The political clout of the empire reached far south into Mesoamerica conquering cities as far south as Chiapas and Guatemala, the Nahua peoples began to migrate into Mesoamerica from northern Mexico in the 6th century. They populated central Mexico, dislocating speakers of Oto-Manguean languages as they spread their influence south. As the former nomadic hunter-gatherer peoples mixed with the civilizations of Mesoamerica, adopting religious and cultural practices. During the Postclassic period they rose to power at such sites as Tula, in the 12th century the Nahua power center was in Azcapotzalco, from where the Tepanecs dominated the valley of Mexico
17.
Maya civilization
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The Maya civilization developed in an area that encompasses southeastern Mexico, all of Guatemala and Belize, and the western portions of Honduras and El Salvador. The Archaic period, prior to 2000 BC, saw the first developments in agriculture, the first Maya cities developed around 750 BC, and by 500 BC these cities possessed monumental architecture, including large temples with elaborate stucco façades. Hieroglyphic writing was being used in the Maya region by the 3rd century BC, in the Late Preclassic a number of large cities developed in the Petén Basin, and Kaminaljuyu rose to prominence in the Guatemalan Highlands. Beginning around 250 AD, the Classic period is defined as when the Maya were raising sculpted monuments with Long Count dates. This period saw the Maya civilization develop a number of city-states linked by a complex trade network. In the Maya Lowlands two great rivals, Tikal and Calakmul, became powerful, the Classic period also saw the intrusive intervention of the central Mexican city of Teotihuacan in Maya dynastic politics. In the 9th century, there was a political collapse in the central Maya region, resulting in internecine warfare, the abandonment of cities. The Postclassic period saw the rise of Chichen Itza in the north, in the 16th century, the Spanish Empire colonized the Mesoamerican region, and a lengthy series of campaigns saw the fall of Nojpetén, the last Maya city in 1697. Classic period rule was centred on the concept of the divine king, kingship was patrilineal, and power would normally pass to the eldest son. A prospective king was expected to be a successful war leader. Maya politics was dominated by a system of patronage, although the exact political make-up of a kingdom varied from city-state to city-state. By the Late Classic, the aristocracy had greatly increased, resulting in the reduction in the exclusive power of the divine king. Maya cities tended to expand haphazardly, and the city centre would be occupied by ceremonial and administrative complexes, different parts of a city would often be linked by causeways. The principal architecture of the city consisted of palaces, pyramid-temples, ceremonial ballcourts, the Maya elite were literate, and developed a complex system of hieroglyphic writing that was the most advanced in the pre-Columbian Americas. The Maya recorded their history and ritual knowledge in screenfold books, there are also a great many examples of Maya text found on stelae and ceramics. The Maya developed a complex series of interlocking ritual calendars. As a part of their religion, the Maya practised human sacrifice, the Maya civilization developed within the Mesoamerican cultural area, which covers a region that spreads from northern Mexico southwards into Central America. Mesoamerica was one of six cradles of civilization worldwide, the Mesoamerican area gave rise to a series of cultural developments that included complex societies, agriculture, cities, monumental architecture, writing, and calendrical systems
18.
Olmec
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The Olmecs were the first major civilization in Guatemala and Mexico following a progressive development in Soconusco and modern southwestern pacific lowlands of Guatemala. They lived in the lowlands of south-central Mexico, in the present-day states of Veracruz. It has been speculated that Olmec derive in part from neighboring Mokaya and/or Mixe–Zoque, the population of the Olmecs flourished during Mesoamericas formative period, dating roughly from as early as 1500 BCE to about 400 BCE. They were the first Mesoamerican civilization, and laid many of the foundations for the civilizations that followed, among other firsts, the Olmec appeared to practice ritual bloodletting and played the Mesoamerican ballgame, hallmarks of nearly all subsequent Mesoamerican societies. The aspect of the Olmecs most familiar now is their artwork, the Olmec civilization was first defined through artifacts which collectors purchased on the pre-Columbian art market in the late 19th century and early 20th century. Olmec artworks are considered among ancient Americas most striking, the name Olmec comes from the Nahuatl word for the Olmecs, Ōlmēcatl or Ōlmēcah. This word is composed of the two words ōlli, meaning rubber, and mēcatl, meaning people, so the word means rubber people, the Olmec heartland is the area in the Gulf lowlands where it expanded after early development in Soconusco. This area is characterized by swampy lowlands punctuated by low hills, ridges, the Tuxtlas Mountains rise sharply in the north, along the Gulf of Mexicos Bay of Campeche. Here the Olmec constructed permanent city-temple complexes at San Lorenzo Tenochtitlán, La Venta, Tres Zapotes, in this region, the first Mesoamerican civilization emerged and reigned from c. The beginnings of Olmec civilization have traditionally been placed between 1400 and 1200 BCE, past finds of Olmec remains ritually deposited at El Manati shrine moved this back to at least 1600–1500 BCE. It seems that the Olmec had their roots in early farming cultures of Tabasco and these shared the same basic food crops and technologies of the later Olmec civilization. What is today called Olmec first appeared fully within the city of San Lorenzo Tenochtitlán, the rise of civilization was assisted by the local ecology of well-watered alluvial soil, as well as by the transportation network provided by the Coatzacoalcos River basin. This environment may be compared to that of other ancient centers of civilization, the Nile, Indus, and Yellow River valleys and this highly productive environment encouraged a densely concentrated population, which in turn triggered the rise of an elite class. The elite class created the demand for the production of the symbolic, the state of Guerrero, and in particular its early Mezcala culture, seem to have played an important role in the early history of Olmec culture. Olmec-style artifacts tend to appear earlier in some parts of Guerrero than in the Veracruz-Tabasco area, in particular, the relevant objects from the Amuco-Abelino site in Guerrero reveal dates as early as 1530 BC. The city of Teopantecuanitlan in Guerrero is also relevant in this regard, the first Olmec center, San Lorenzo, was all but abandoned around 900 BCE at about the same time that La Venta rose to prominence. A wholesale destruction of many San Lorenzo monuments also occurred circa 950 BCE, which may indicate an internal uprising or, less likely, an invasion. The latest thinking, however, is that changes may have been responsible for this shift in Olmec centers
19.
Toltec
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The Toltec culture is an archaeological Mesoamerican culture that dominated a state centered in Tula, Hidalgo, Mexico in the early post-classic period of Mesoamerican chronology. The Aztec oral and pictographic tradition also described the history of the Toltec Empire, giving lists of rulers, among modern scholars it is a matter of debate whether the Aztec narratives of Toltec history should be given credence as descriptions of actual historical events. Others maintain that continued analysis of the narratives as sources of history is futile. No consensus has yet emerged about the degree or direction of influence between these two sites, another source of controversy is the fact that New Age authors such as Carlos Castaneda and Don Miguel Ruiz, who say that they represent Toltec teachings. For this tradition of knowledge see Toltec, traits associated with this horizon are, The Mixteca-Puebla style of iconography, Tohil plumbate ceramic ware and Silho or X-Fine Orange Ware ceramics. The presence of traits associated with Tula in Chichén Itzá is also taken as evidence for a Toltec horizon. The existence of any meaning of the Mixteca-Puebla art style has also been questioned, while Tula does have the urban complexity expected of an imperial capital, its influence and dominance was not very far reaching. Evidence for Tulas participation in trade networks has been uncovered, for example. The debate about the nature of the Toltec culture goes back to the late 19th century and this led him to posit the theory that Chichén Itzá had been violently taken over by a Toltec military force under the leadership of Kukulcan. The historicist school of thought persisted well in to the 20th century, represented in the works of such as David Carrasco, Miguel León Portilla, Nigel Davies. Nicholson, which all held the Toltecs to have been an ethnic group. This school of thought connected the Toltecs to the site of Tula. This tradition assumes that much of central Mexico was dominated by a Toltec Empire between the 10th and 12th century CE, the Aztecs referred to several Mexican city states as Tollan, Place of Reeds, such as Tollan Cholollan. Archaeologist Laurette Sejourné, followed by the historian Enrique Florescano, have argued that the original Tollan was probably Teotihuacán, Florescano adds that the Mayan sources refer to Chichén Itzá when talking about the mythical place Zuyua. Many historicists such as H. B, for example, they seek to discern between the deity Quetzalcoatl and a Toltec ruler often referred to as Topiltzin Ce Acatl Quetzalcoatl. Scholars such as Michel Graulich and Susan D. Gillespie maintained that the difficulties in salvaging historic data from the Aztec accounts of Toltec history are too great to overcome, the first is described as a valiant triumphant warrior, but the last as a feeble and self-doubting old man. This caused Graulich to consider that the only historical data in the Aztec chronicles are the names of some rulers. Furthermore, among the Nahuan peoples the word Tolteca was synonymous with artist, artisan or wise man, and toltecayotl
20.
Nahuatl
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Nahuatl, known historically as Aztec, is a language or group of languages of the Uto-Aztecan language family. Varieties of Nahuatl are spoken by an estimated 1.5 million Nahua peoples, all Nahuan languages are indigenous to Mesoamerica. Nahuatl has been spoken in central Mexico since at least the seventh century CE and it was the language of the Aztecs who dominated what is now central Mexico during the Late Postclassic period of Mesoamerican history. This early literary language based on the Tenochtitlan variety has been labeled Classical Nahuatl, today, Nahuan languages are spoken in scattered communities, mostly in rural areas throughout central Mexico and along the coastline. There are considerable differences among varieties, and some are mutually unintelligible, Huasteca Nahuatl, with over one million speakers, is the most-spoken variety. They have all been subject to varying degrees of influence from Spanish, No modern Nahuan languages are identical to Classical Nahuatl, but those spoken in and around the Valley of Mexico are generally more closely related to it than those on the periphery. Nahuan languages exhibit a complex morphology characterized by polysynthesis and agglutination, through a very long period of coexistence with the other indigenous Mesoamerican languages, they have absorbed many influences, coming to form part of the Mesoamerican language area. Many words from Nahuatl have been borrowed into Spanish, and since diffused into hundreds of other languages, most of these loanwords denote things indigenous to central Mexico which the Spanish heard mentioned for the first time by their Nahuatl names. English words of Nahuatl origin include avocado, chayote, chili, chocolate, atlatl, coyote, peyote, axolotl, as a language label, the term Nahuatl encompasses a group of closely related languages or divergent dialects within the Nahuan branch of the Uto-Aztecan language family. The Mexican Instituto Nacional de Lenguas Indígenas recognize 30 different individual varieties within the language group labeled Nahuatl, the Ethnologue recognizes 28 varieties with separate ISO codes. Sometimes the label also is used to include the Pipil language of El Salvador, within Mexico the question of whether to consider individual varieties to be languages or dialects of a single language is highly political. This article focuses on describing the history of the group. For details on individual varieties or subgroups, see the individual articles, in the past, the branch of Uto-Aztecan to which Nahuatl belongs has been called Aztecan. From the 1990s onward, the alternative designation Nahuan has been used as a replacement especially in Spanish-language publications. The Nahuan branch of Uto-Aztecan is widely accepted as having two divisions, General Aztec and Pochutec, General Aztec encompasses the Nahuatl and Pipil languages. Pochutec is a scantily attested language, which became extinct in the 20th century, other researchers have argued that Pochutec should be considered a divergent variant of the western periphery. Nahuatl denotes at least Classical Nahuatl together with related languages spoken in Mexico. The inclusion of Pipil into the group is debated, current subclassification of Nahuatl rests on research by Canger, Canger and Lastra de Suárez
21.
Pre-Columbian era
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For this reason the alternative terms of Precontact Americas, Pre-Colonial Americas or Prehistoric Americas are also in use. In areas of Latin America the term used is Pre-Hispanic. Other civilizations were contemporary with the period and were described in European historical accounts of the time. A few, such as the Maya civilization, had their own written records, because many Christian Europeans of the time viewed such texts as heretical, men like Diego de Landa destroyed many texts in pyres, even while seeking to preserve native histories. Only a few documents have survived in their original languages, while others were transcribed or dictated into Spanish, giving modern historians glimpses of ancient culture. Indigenous American cultures continue to evolve after the pre-Columbian era, many of these peoples and their descendants continue traditional practices, while evolving and adapting new cultural practices and technologies into their lives. Now, the study of pre-Columbian cultures is most often based on scientific. Asian nomads are thought to have entered the Americas via the Bering Land Bridge, now the Bering Strait, genetic evidence found in Amerindians maternally inherited mitochondrial DNA supports the theory of multiple genetic populations migrating from Asia. Over the course of millennia, Paleo-Indians spread throughout North and South America, exactly when the first group of people migrated into the Americas is the subject of much debate. One of the earliest identifiable cultures was the Clovis culture, with sites dating from some 13,000 years ago, however, older sites dating back to 20,000 years ago have been claimed. Some genetic studies estimate the colonization of the Americas dates from between 40,000 and 13,000 years ago, the chronology of migration models is currently divided into two general approaches. The first is the short chronology theory with the first movement beyond Alaska into the New World occurring no earlier than 14, 000–17,000 years ago, followed by successive waves of immigrants. The second belief is the long chronology theory, which proposes that the first group of people entered the hemisphere at an earlier date, possibly 50. In that case, the Eskimo peoples would have arrived separately and at a later date, probably no more than 2,000 years ago. The North American climate was unstable as the ice age receded and it finally stabilized by about 10,000 years ago, climatic conditions were then very similar to todays. Within this timeframe, roughly pertaining to the Archaic Period, numerous archaeological cultures have been identified, the unstable climate led to widespread migration, with early Paleo-Indians soon spreading throughout the Americas, diversifying into many hundreds of culturally distinct tribes. The paleo-indians were hunter-gatherers, likely characterized by small, mobile bands consisting of approximately 20 to 50 members of an extended family and these groups moved from place to place as preferred resources were depleted and new supplies were sought. During much of the Paleo-Indian period, bands are thought to have subsisted primarily through hunting now-extinct giant land animals such as mastodon, Paleo-Indian groups carried a variety of tools
22.
Axolotl
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The axolotl also known as a Mexican salamander or a Mexican walking fish, is a neotenic salamander, closely related to the tiger salamander. Although the axolotl is colloquially known as a fish, it is not a fish. The species originates from numerous lakes, such as Lake Xochimilco underlying Mexico City, axolotls are unusual among amphibians in that they reach adulthood without undergoing metamorphosis. Instead of developing lungs and taking to land, the adults remain aquatic, axolotls should not be confused with waterdogs, the larval stage of the closely related tiger salamanders, which are widespread in much of North America and occasionally become neotenic. Neither should they be confused with mudpuppies, fully aquatic salamanders which are not closely related to the axolotl, as of 2010, wild axolotls were near extinction due to urbanization in Mexico City and consequent water pollution. They are currently listed by CITES as a species and by IUCN as critically endangered in the wild. Axolotls are used extensively in research due to their ability to regenerate limbs. Axolotls were also sold as food in Mexican markets and were a staple in the Aztec diet, a four-month-long search in 2013 turned up no surviving individuals in the wild. Previous surveys in 1998,2003 and 2008 had found 6,000,1,000 and 100 axolotls per square kilometer in its Lake Xochimilco habitat, respectively. A sexually mature adult axolotl, at age 18–24 months, ranges in length from 15–45 cm, although a close to 23 cm is most common. Axolotls possess features typical of larvae, including external gills. Their heads are wide, and their eyes are lidless and their limbs are underdeveloped and possess long, thin digits. Males are identified by their swollen cloacae lined with papillae, while females are noticeable for their bodies full of eggs. Three pairs of external gill stalks originate behind their heads and are used to move oxygenated water, the external gill rami are lined with filaments to increase surface area for gas exchange. Four gill slits lined with gill rakers are hidden underneath the external gills, axolotls have barely visible vestigial teeth, which would have developed during metamorphosis. The primary method of feeding is by suction, during which their rakers interlock to close the gill slits, external gills are used for respiration, although buccal pumping may also be used to provide oxygen to their lungs. Axolotls have four pigmentation genes which when mutated create different color variants, the normal wild type animal is brown/tan with gold speckles and an olive undertone. The four mutant colors are leucistic, albino, axanthic and melanoid, axolotls also have some limited ability to alter their color to provide better camouflage by changing the relative size and thickness of their melanophores
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Maya peoples
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The Maya people are a group of Indigenous peoples of Mesoamerica. They inhabit southern Mexico, Guatemala, Belize, El Salvador, the pre-Columbian Maya population was approximately eight million. There were a seven million Maya living in this area at the start of the 21st century. Guatemala, southern Mexico and the Yucatán Peninsula, Belize, El Salvador, one of the largest groups of modern Maya can be found in Mexicos Yucatán State and the neighboring states of Campeche, Quintana Roo and in Belize. These peoples commonly identify themselves simply as Maya with no further ethnic subdivision and they speak the language which anthropologists term Yucatec Maya, but is identified by speakers and Yucatecos simply as Maya. Among Maya speakers, Spanish is commonly spoken as a second or first language, linguists refer to the Maya language as Yucatec or Yucatec Maya to distinguish it from other Mayan languages. This norm has often been misinterpreted to mean that the people are also called Yucatec Maya, that refers only to the language. Maya is one language in the Mayan language family, thus, to refer to Maya as Mayans would be similar to referring to Spanish people as Romantics because they speak a language belonging to the Romance language family. Confusion of the term Maya/Mayan as an ethnic label occurs because Maya women who use traditional dress identify by the ethnic term mestiza, the Yucatáns indigenous population was first exposed to Europeans after a party of Spanish shipwreck survivors came ashore in 1511. One of the sailors, Gonzalo Guerrero, is reported to have taken up with a woman and started a family. Later Spanish expeditions to the region were led by Córdoba in 1517, Grijalva in 1518, from 1528 to 1540, several attempts by Francisco Montejo to conquer the Yucatán failed. His son, Francisco de Montejo the Younger, fared almost as badly when he first took over, while holding out at Chichen Itza. Chichen Itza was conquered by 1570, in 1542, the western Yucatán Peninsula also surrendered to him. Historically, the population in the half of the peninsula was less affected by. In the 21st century in the Yucatán Peninsula, between 750,000 and 1,200,000 people speak Mayan, however, three times more than that are of Maya origins, hold ancient Maya surnames, and do not speak Mayan languages as their first language. Matthew Restall, in his book The Maya Conquistador, mentions a series of letters sent to the King of Spain in the 16th and 17th centuries. The noble Maya families at that time signed documents to the Spanish Royal Family, surnames mentioned in letters are Pech, Camal, Xiu, Ucan, Canul, Cocom. A large 19th-century revolt by the native Maya people of Yucatán, for a period the Maya state of Chan Santa Cruz was recognized as an independent nation by the British Empire, particularly in terms of trading with British Honduras
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Classic Maya
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Classic Maya is the oldest historically attested member of the Mayan language family. It is the main language documented in the inscriptions of the Classic Era Maya civilization. It is now thought that the codices and other Classic texts were written by scribes, usually members of the Maya priesthood, there is also some evidence that the Maya script may have been occasionally used to write Mayan languages of the Guatemalan Highlands. However, if languages were written, they may have been written by Ch’olti’ scribes. The writing system has some similarities in function other logosyllabic writing systems such as the cuneiform originating in Sumer, for example, in one common pattern many verb and noun roots are given by logographs, while their grammatical affixes were written syllabically, much like the Japanese writing system. Like most other Mayan languages, Classic Maya is verb–subject–object and is an ergative–absolutive language, being polysynthetic, it uses both prefixes and suffixes to show grammatical function. Nouns are not inflected for case or gender, there is also an entire class of intransitives that convey the objects spatial position. In addition, the language employs counter words when quantifying nouns, verbs are not conjugated according to tense, but rather are semantically altered by a series of aspect particles
25.
Mesoamerican chronology
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Mesoamerican chronology divides the history of pre-Columbian Mesoamerica into several periods, the Paleo-Indian, the Archaic, the Preclassic or Formative, the Classic, and the Postclassic. However, this applies to other pre-Columbian Mesoamerican civilizations as well. 3500-2000 BCE During the Archaic Era agriculture was developed in the region, Late in this era, use of pottery and loom weaving became common, and class divisions began to appear. Many of the technologies of Mesoamerica in terms of stone-grinding, drilling. 1800 BCE–200 CE During the Preclassic Era, or Formative Period, large-scale ceremonial architecture, writing, cities, the Olmec civilization developed and flourished at such sites as La Venta and San Lorenzo Tenochtitlán. 200–1000 CE The Classic Era was dominated by numerous independent city-states in the Maya region and also featured the beginnings of political unity in central Mexico, regional differences between cultures grew more manifest. The city-state of Monte Albán dominated the Valley of Oaxaca until the late Classic, highly sophisticated arts such as stuccowork, architecture, sculptural reliefs, mural painting, pottery, and lapidary developed and spread during the Classic era. In the Maya region, numerous city states such as Tikal, Calakmul, Copán, Palenque, Uxmal, Cobá, each of these polities was generally independent, although they often formed alliances and sometimes became vassal states of each other. The main conflict during this period was between Tikal and Calakmul, who fought a series of wars over the course of more than half a millennium, each of these states declined during the Terminal Classic and were eventually abandoned. This is sometimes seen as a period of increased chaos and warfare, the Postclassic is often viewed as a period of cultural decline. However, it was a time of technological advancement in architecture, engineering, metallurgy came into use for jewelry and some tools, with new alloys and techniques being developed in a few centuries. The Postclassic was a period of rapid movement and population growth — especially in Central Mexico post-1200 —, for instance, in Yucatán, dual rulership apparently replaced the more theocratic governments of Classic times, whilst oligarchic councils operated in much of Central Mexico. Likewise, it appears that the wealthy pochteca and military orders became more powerful than was apparently the case in Classic times and this afforded some Mesoamericans a degree of social mobility. The Toltec for a time dominated central Mexico in the 11th–13th century, the northern Maya were for a time united under Mayapan, and Oaxaca was briefly united by Mixtec rulers in the 11th–12th centuries. The Aztec Empire arose in the early 15th century and appeared to be on a path to asserting dominance over the Valley of Mexico region not seen since Teotihuacan. Spain was the first European power to contact Mesoamerica, however, and its conquistadores, by the 15th century, the Mayan revival in Yucatán and southern Guatemala and the flourishing of Aztec imperialism evidently enabled a renaissance of fine arts and science. Examples include the Pueblan-Mexica style in pottery, codex illumination, and goldwork, the flourishing of Nahua poetry, arguably, the Post-Classic continued until the conquest of the last independent native state of Mesoamerica, Tayasal, in 1697. Mesoamerican civilization was a network of different cultures
26.
Mexico
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Mexico, officially the United Mexican States, is a federal republic in the southern half of North America. It is bordered to the north by the United States, to the south and west by the Pacific Ocean, to the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea, and to the east by the Gulf of Mexico. Covering almost two million square kilometers, Mexico is the sixth largest country in the Americas by total area, Mexico is a federation comprising 31 states and a federal district that is also its capital and most populous city. Other metropolises include Guadalajara, Monterrey, Puebla, Toluca, Tijuana, pre-Columbian Mexico was home to many advanced Mesoamerican civilizations, such as the Olmec, Toltec, Teotihuacan, Zapotec, Maya and Aztec before first contact with Europeans. In 1521, the Spanish Empire conquered and colonized the territory from its base in Mexico-Tenochtitlan, Three centuries later, this territory became Mexico following recognition in 1821 after the colonys Mexican War of Independence. The tumultuous post-independence period was characterized by instability and many political changes. The Mexican–American War led to the cession of the extensive northern borderlands, one-third of its territory. The Pastry War, the Franco-Mexican War, a civil war, the dictatorship was overthrown in the Mexican Revolution of 1910, which culminated with the promulgation of the 1917 Constitution and the emergence of the countrys current political system. Mexico has the fifteenth largest nominal GDP and the eleventh largest by purchasing power parity, the Mexican economy is strongly linked to those of its North American Free Trade Agreement partners, especially the United States. Mexico was the first Latin American member of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development and it is classified as an upper-middle income country by the World Bank and a newly industrialized country by several analysts. By 2050, Mexico could become the fifth or seventh largest economy. The country is considered both a power and middle power, and is often identified as an emerging global power. Due to its culture and history, Mexico ranks first in the Americas. Mexico is a country, ranking fourth in the world by biodiversity. In 2015 it was the 9th most visited country in the world, Mexico is a member of the United Nations, the World Trade Organization, the G8+5, the G20, the Uniting for Consensus and the Pacific Alliance. Mēxihco is the Nahuatl term for the heartland of the Aztec Empire, namely, the Valley of Mexico, and its people, the Mexica and this became the future State of Mexico as a division of New Spain prior to independence. It is generally considered to be a toponym for the valley became the primary ethnonym for the Aztec Triple Alliance as a result. After New Spain won independence from Spain, representatives decided to name the new country after its capital and this was founded in 1524 on top of the ancient Mexica capital of Mexico-Tenochtitlan
27.
Nixtamalization
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Nixtamalization typically refers to a process for the preparation of maize, or other grain, in which the corn is soaked and cooked in an alkaline solution, usually limewater, washed, and then hulled. This process, originating in Mexico, is known to remove up to 97-100% of aflatoxins from mycotoxin contaminated corn. The term can refer to the removal via an alkali process of the pericarp from other grains such as sorghum. Nixtamalized maize has several benefits over unprocessed grain, it is more easily ground, its value is increased, flavor and aroma are improved. Some of the oil is broken down into emulsifying agents. The divalent calcium in lime acts as a agent for protein. As a result, while cornmeal made from untreated ground maize is unable by itself to form a dough on addition of water, in the Aztec language Nahuatl, the word for the product of this procedure is nixtamalli or nextamalli, which in turn has yielded Mexican Spanish nixtamal. The Nahuatl word is a compound of nextli ashes and tamalli unformed corn dough, the term nixtamalization can also be used to describe the removal of the pericarp from any grain by an alkali process, including maize, sorghum, and others. When the unaltered Spanish spelling nixtamalización is used in written English, however, the ancient process of nixtamalization was first developed in Mesoamerica, where maize was originally cultivated. There is no precise date when the technology was developed, but the earliest evidence of nixtamalization is found in Guatemalas southern coast, the ancient Aztec and Mayan civilizations developed nixtamalization using slaked lime and ash to create alkaline solutions. The Chibcha people to the north of the ancient Inca also used calcium hydroxide, the nixtamalization process was very important in the early Mesoamerican diet, as unprocessed maize is deficient in free niacin. A population depending on untreated maize as a staple food risks malnourishment, maize also is deficient in essential amino acids, which can result in kwashiorkor. Maize cooked with lime provided niacin in this diet, beans, when consumed with the maize, provided the amino acids required to balance the diet for protein. The spread of cultivation in the Americas was accompanied by the adoption of the nixtamalization process. Traditional and contemporary regional cuisines included, and still include, foods based on nixtamalized maize, the process has not substantially declined in usage in the Mesoamerican region, though there has been a decline in North America. Many North American Native American tribes, such as the Huron, in some Mesoamerican and North American regions, dishes are still made from nixtamalized maize prepared by traditional techniques. The Hopi obtain the necessary alkali from ashes of native plants. Some contemporary Maya use the ashes of burnt mussel shells, in the United States, European settlers did not always adopt the nixtamalization process, except in the case of hominy grits, though maize became a staple among the poor of the southern states
28.
Hominy
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Hominy is a food produced from dried maize kernels that have been treated with an alkali, in a process called nixtamalization. Hominy is made in a process called nixtamalization, to make hominy, field corn grain is dried, then treated by soaking and cooking the mature grain in a dilute solution of lye or of slaked lime. Alkalinity helps dissolve hemicellulose, the major component of the maize cell walls, loosens the hulls from the kernels. Also, soaking the corn in lye kills the seeds germ, finally, in addition to providing a source of dietary calcium, the lye or lime reacts with the corn so that the nutrient niacin can be assimilated by the digestive tract. People consume hominy in intact kernels, grind it into sand-sized particles for grits, in Mexican cooking, hominy is finely ground to make masa. Fresh masa that has dried and powdered is called masa seca or masa harina. Some of the oil breaks down into emulsifying agents. The divalent calcium in lime acts as a agent for protein. Cornmeal from untreated ground corn cant form a dough with the addition of water, previously, consuming untreated corn was thought to cause pellagra —either from the corn itself or some infectious element in untreated corn. However, further advancements showed that it is a correlational, not causal, in the 1700 and 1800s, areas that depended highly on corn as a diet staple were more likely to have pellagra. This is because humans cant absorb niacin in untreated corn, the nixtamalization process frees niacin into a state where the intestines can absorb it. This was discovered primarily by exploring why Mexican people who depended on maize did not develop pellagra, one reason was that Mayans treated corn in an alkaline solution to soften it, in the process we now call nixtamalization. The earliest known use of nixtamalization was in what is present-day southern Mexico, in Central American and Mexican cuisine, people cook masa nixtamalera with water and milk to make a thick, gruel-like beverage called atole. When they make it with chocolate and sugar, it becomes atole de chocolate, adding anise and piloncillo to this mix creates champurrado, a popular breakfast drink. The English term hominy derives from the Powhatan language word for prepared maize, many other indigenous American cultures also made hominy, and integrated it into their diet. Cherokees, for example, made hominy grits by soaking corn in a lye solution produced by leaching hardwood ash with water. They used grits to make a traditional hominy soup that they let ferment, cornbread, dumplings, or, in times, fried with bacon. Hominy recipes include pozole, hominy bread, hominy chili, hog n hominy, casseroles, in Latin America there are a variety of dishes referred to as mote
29.
Gruma
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Gruma, S. A. B. de C. V. known as Gruma, is a Mexican multinational corn flour and tortillas manufacturing company headquartered in San Pedro, near Monterrey, Mexico. It may be the largest corn flour and tortillas manufacturer in the world and its brand names include Mission, Maseca, and Guerrero. Gruma reported revenues of US$3.8 billion for 2014 and it operates more than 79 plants worldwide, mainly in Mexico, the United States and Europe, and employs approximately 18,000 people. Gruma is listed on the Mexican Stock Exchange since 1994 and had a NYSE listing through ADRs from 1998 up to September 2015 and it is a constituent of the IPC, the main benchmark index of Mexican stocks. The first industrial facility of corn flour in the world was opened in 1949 under the name Molinos Azteca. Expansion quickly led to the government of Costa Rica inviting the company to invest in that country, from then on, a long tradition of investments outside of Mexico was followed. In 1977, Grupo Maseca opened a subsidiary in California, pioneering in the production of tortilla in the United States and it would be in Texas, in 1982, where Maseca would open the first production facility of nixtamalized corn flour in that country. By 1990, the company had subsidiaries in North America and Central America, including the United States, Honduras and it was in this year when the company made its Initial Public Offering in the Mexican Stock Exchange as GIMSA, or Grupo Industrial Maseca. Gruma consolidated itself as a company after acquiring 10% of Banorte in 1992. Apart from its 10% interest in Banorte, Gruma operates as a company for a number of subsidiaries that produce, market. One of the worlds largest producers of flatbread, tortilla and corn flour products, produces and commercializes corn flour and tortillas in the United States, Europe, and China. In the United States, Gruma Corporation is headquartered in Irving, Gruma Corporation in China is based in Shanghai, and made it the first tortilla producer in that country. It has a capacity of 15,000 tonnes of wheat tortillas,7,000 tonnes of corn tortillas and 6,000 tonnes of snacks. In Asia, the company also has distributors in Japan, South Korea, Singapore, Hong Kong, Thailand, Philippines, short for Grupo Industrial Maseca, S. A. it is dedicated to the production, distribution, and marketing of corn flour in Mexico. GIMSA has the largest production capacity, with a share of about 70%. It is the largest producer of flour in Mexico, with a capacity of one million tons. Gruma entered this market through joint ventures with Archer-Daniels-Midland in 1996, among its principal brands are Selecta, Reposada, Sello de Oro, and Diluvio. Produces, markets, and distributes tortillas through Grumas most recognizable brand, designs, manufactures and markets machinery for the production of tortillas and other corn snacks
30.
Cooking banana
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Cooking bananas are banana cultivars in the genus Musa whose fruits are generally used in cooking. They may be eaten ripe or unripe and starchy. Some cooking bananas are also referred to as green bananas or plantains, the term plantain is loosely applied to any banana cultivar that is eaten when cooked. However, there is no formal distinction between bananas and plantains. Cooking is also a matter of custom, rather than necessity, ripe plantains can be eaten raw, since the starches are converted to sugars as they ripen. In more formal usage, the plantain is used only for true plantains. All modern plantain cultivars have three sets of chromosomes, many are hybrids derived from the cross of two wild species, Musa acuminata and Musa balbisiana. The currently accepted name for all such crosses is Musa × paradisiaca. Using Simmonds and Shepherds genome-based nomenclature system, cultivars which are cooked often belong to the AAB Group, although some belong to the AAA Group, fei bananas from the Pacific Islands are often eaten roasted or boiled, and are thus informally referred to as mountain plantains. However, they do not belong to either of the two species that all modern cultivated banana cultivars descended from, all members of the genus Musa are indigenous to the tropical regions of Southeast Asia and Oceania, including the Malay Archipelago and Northern Australia. Plantains are a food staple in West and Central Africa, the Caribbean islands, Central America. They are treated as a fruit with a relatively neutral flavour. As with all bananas, part of the attractiveness of plantains as food is that they fruit all year round, plantains contain more starch and less sugar than dessert bananas, therefore they are usually cooked or otherwise processed before being eaten. They are always cooked or fried when eaten green, at this stage, the pulp is hard and the peel often so stiff that it has to be cut with a knife to be removed. Mature, yellow plantains can be peeled like typical dessert bananas and they can be eaten raw, but are not as flavourful as dessert bananas, so are usually cooked. When mature, yellow plantains are fried, they tend to caramelize and they can also be boiled, baked, microwaved or grilled over charcoal, either peeled or unpeeled. Plantains are a food in the tropical regions of the world. As a staple, plantains are treated in much the way as potatoes and with a similar neutral flavour
31.
Comfort food
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Comfort food is food that provides a nostalgic or sentimental value to someone, and may be characterized by its high caloric nature, high carbohydrate level, or simple preparation. The nostalgia may be specific to an individual, or it may apply to a specific culture and they are believed to be a great coping mechanism for rapidly soothing negative feelings. Comfort foods may be consumed to positively pique emotions, to relieve negative effects or to increase positive feelings. The identification of items as comfort food may be idiosyncratic. In one study of American preferences, males preferred warm, hearty, in addition, younger people preferred more snack-related comfort foods compared to those over 55 years of age. The study also revealed strong connections between consumption of foods and feelings of guilt. It also suggested that women are likely to reach for unhealthier foods in times of stress due to more weight-conscious mindsets. Comfort food consumption has seen as a response to emotional stress and, consequently. The provocation of specific hormonal responses leading selectively to increases in fat is seen as a form of self-medication. Further studies suggest that consumption of food is triggered in men by positive emotions. The stress effect is pronounced among college-aged women, with only 33% reporting healthy eating choices during times of emotional stress. For women specifically, these patterns may be maladaptive. A partial list by country of comfort foods around the world, Comfort foods in Australia and New Zealand may include, British comfort foods include the following foods, Comfort food in India usually varies between states and cities. Typically it is eaten and easily available at roadside eateries or shops. Homemade food, especially by mothers, has a sentimental value. This includes a very common Indian comfort food known as khichdi, Comfort foods often are the kind of food that provides nostalgic sentiments, as they often called masakan rumahan or masakan ibu. In Indonesia, the warm and soft texture of bubur ayam is believed to help people to recover during convalescence, some Indonesian comfort foods are traditional Indonesian food and some are derived from Chinese influences. For some Indonesians, especially those who are abroad, comfort food might also be a brand or type of Indonesian instant noodle
32.
Atole
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Atole or ātōlli, also known as atol and atol de elote, is a traditional hot corn- and masa-based beverage of Mesoamerican origin. Chocolate atole is known as champurrado or atole and it is typically accompanied with tamales, and very popular during the Christmas holiday season. In Mexico the drink typically includes masa, water, piloncillo, cinnamon, vanilla, the mixture is blended and heated before serving. Atole is made by toasting masa on a comal, then adding water that was boiled with cinnamon sticks, the resulting blends vary in texture, ranging from a porridge to a very thin liquid consistency. Atole can also be prepared with rice, flour, or oatmeal in place of masa, in northern Mexico, there is also a variation using pinole. Although atole is one of the drinks of the Mexican holiday Day of the Dead, it is very common during breakfast. It is usually sold as street food, in Northern Mexico and South Texas, atole is a traditional comfort food. It is often eaten as a breakfast or an after dinner snack on cold days, in New Mexico, blue corn atole is finely ground cornmeal toasted for cooking, consumed as a grainy porridge-style drink served warm, usually sweetened with sugar and/or thinned with milk. It is usually served at breakfast like cream of wheat or oatmeal and it is said that elders would drink atole because it gave them energy and if a mother is nursing it gives her more milk. Salvadoran varieties include atol shuco, particularly popular in the Cabañas region, in some parts of Honduras, fresh corn is ground and the expressed liquid is used as the base. In Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador Atol de Elote is a popular beverage, pineapple atol is also imbibed in El Salvador
33.
Champurrado
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Ground nuts, orange zest, and egg can also be employed to thicken and enrich the drink. Atole drinks are whipped up using a whisk called a molinillo. The whisk is rolled between the palms of the hands, then moved back and forth in the mixture until it is aerated, champurrado is traditionally served with churros in the morning as a simple breakfast or as a late afternoon snack. Champurrado is also popular during Día de Muertos and at Las Posadas where it is served alongside tamales. An instant mix for champurrado is available in Mexican grocery stores, champurrado may also be made with alcohol. The Mexican drink has been around since pre-Columbian times, among the Aztecs, List of chocolate beverages List of hot beverages List of maize dishes
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Olla
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An olla is a ceramic jar, often unglazed, used for cooking stews or soups, for the storage of water or dry foods, or for other purposes. Ollas have a wide neck and a wider belly, resembling beanpots or handis. The Latin word olla or aulla meant a very similar type of pot in Ancient Roman pottery, used for cooking, later, in Celtic Gaul, the olla became a symbol of the god Sucellus, who reigned over agriculture. In Spain, the popular dish olla podrida, cooked in an olla, in certain areas of the Pyrenees in Catalonia a type of olla, known locally as tupí, is used as container for the preparation of tupí, a certain type of cheese. The Spanish settlers may have introduced the olla to Native American tribes, the olla by its Spanish name has become associated with the region. It was used by settlers and natives both, among Southwestern Native American tribes, ollas used for storing water often were made with narrow necks to prevent evaporation in the desert heat. The olla is used by the Kwaaymii people, among others, for cooking, storing water, serving meals. The term olla is also applied to regional basketry shaped with bulbous bodies, olla baskets are commonly used by the Western Apache, Shoshone, and Yavapai. Because water seeps through the walls of an unglazed olla, these vessels can be used to irrigate plants, the olla is buried in the ground next to the roots of the plant to be irrigated, with the neck of the olla extending above the soil. The olla is filled with water, which seeps into the soil to water the roots of the plant. It is an efficient method, since water is lost to evaporation or run-off. This irrigation technique was introduced to the Americas by Spanish settlers in colonial times, agriculture and gardening specialists are teaching it, and olla use is making a comeback in New Mexico and the American West. The state’s master gardening program is spreading the word and it can be effective for homeowners to use in the desert climate. It has also put to use by the Global Buckets project. In their September 2013 newsletter, Ecology Action describes using five 5-gallon ollas for a 100-square-foot garden plot, the test plot is using 1.25 gallons per olla every four days. The ollas are fitted with caps that reduce evaporation and collect rain, the olla is also useful for keeping water cool. When an unglazed olla is filled with water, the water permeates the clay walls of the vessel, the evaporation of the sweat cools the olla and its contents. In the early 20th century, many ranches in the American Southwest used the practice of hanging an olla from a rope on the verandah in a shady, several hours after the olla was hung, it was cooled enough by evaporation to keep butter and milk safely cold
35.
Salsa (sauce)
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Salsa is the Italian and Spanish term for sauce, and in English-speaking countries usually refers to the sauces typical of Mexican cuisine known as salsas picantes, particularly those used as dips. Salsa is often a sauce or dip that is a heterogeneous mixture that includes additional ingredients such as onions, chilies, beans, corn. It is typically piquant, ranging from mild to extremely hot, the word salsa entered the English language from the Spanish salsa, which itself derives from the Latin salsa, from sal. In American English it is pronounced /ˈsɑːlsə/, while in British English it is pronounced as /ˈsælsə/, Mexican salsas were traditionally produced using the mortar and pestle-like molcajete, although blenders are now more commonly used. The Maya made salsa also, using a mortar and pestle, well-known salsas include, Salsa roja, red sauce, is used as a condiment in Mexican and Southwestern cuisines, usually includes cooked tomatoes, chili peppers, onion, garlic, and fresh cilantro. Pico de gallo, also known as salsa fresca, salsa picada, or salsa mexicana, is made with raw tomatoes, lime juice, chilies, onions, cilantro leaves, and other coarsely chopped raw ingredients. Salsa cruda, raw sauce, is a mixture of chopped tomatoes, onions, jalapeño chilies. Salsa verde, green sauce, in Mexican versions, is made with tomatillos, the Italian version is made with herbs. Salsa negra, black sauce is a Mexican sauce made from dried chilies, oil, Salsa taquera, taco sauce, Made with tomatillos and morita chili Salsa criolla is a South American salsa with a sliced-onion base. Salsa ranchera, ranch-style sauce, Made with roasted tomatoes, various chilies, and spices, it typically is served warm, though it contains none, it imparts a characteristic flavor reminiscent of black pepper. Salsa brava, wild sauce, is a spicy sauce made with tomato, garlic, onion. On top of potato wedges, it makes the dish patatas bravas, guacamole is thicker than a sauce and generally used as a dip, it refers to any sauce where the main ingredient is avocado. Mole is a Mexican sauce made from chilies mixed with spices, unsweetened chocolate, almonds, creamy avocado salsa is a sauce made from avocado, lime, cilantro, jalapeño or serrano peppers, garlic, olive oil, cumin, and salt. Mango salsa is a sauce made from mangoes, used as a topping for nachos. It is often used as a garnish on grilled chicken or grilled fish due to the sauces gamut of complementary flavors. Pineapple salsa is a spicy and sweet made from pineapples. Chipotle salsa is a smoky, spicy sauce made from smoked jalapeño chilies, tomatoes, garlic, habanero salsa is an extremely spicy salsa, where the piquancy comes from habanero chilies. Corn salsa is a chunky salsa made with sweetcorn and other ingredients, such as onions, and chiles, made popular by the chains for burritos, tacos
36.
Raisin
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A raisin is a dried grape. Raisins are produced in regions of the world and may be eaten raw or used in cooking, baking. The word raisin dates back to Middle English and is a loanword from Old French, in modern French, raisin means grape, while a dried grape is a raisin sec, or dry grape. The Old French word, in turn, developed from the Latin word racemus, Raisin varieties depend on the type of grape used, and are made in a variety of sizes and colors including green, black, brown, blue, purple, and yellow. Seedless varieties include the sultana, the Greek currants and Flame grapes, Raisins are traditionally sun-dried, but may also be water-dipped and artificially dehydrated. Golden raisins are treated with sulfur dioxide after drying to give them their golden color, black Corinth or Zante currant are miniature, sometimes seedless raisins that are much darker and have a tart, tangy flavor. Muscat raisins are large compared to varieties, and also sweeter. Several varieties of raisins produced in Asia are available in the West only at ethnic grocers, monukka grapes are used for some of these. Raisins can contain up to 72% sugars by weight, most of which is fructose and glucose and they also contain about 3% protein and 3. 7%–6. 8% dietary fiber. Raisins, like prunes and apricots, are high in certain antioxidants. Raisins are low in sodium and contain no cholesterol, Raisins can cause renal failure in dogs. The cause of this is not known, Raisins are sweet due to their high concentration of sugars. The sugars can crystallise inside the fruit when stored after a period, making the dry raisins gritty. These sugar grains can be dissolved by blanching the fruit in hot water or other liquids, grade A The color is good, and the flavor is characteristic of raisins. These raisins show development characteristics indicative of the fact that they are prepared from well-matured grapes, the processed raisins contain less than 19% moisture by weight. Grade B The color and flavor is reasonably good and these raisins show development characteristics that highlight the fact that the raisins were prepared from reasonably well-matured grapes containing at least 70% water by weight. These raisins also contain less than 19% moisture, by weight, grade C The color and flavor are fairly good. These raisins show development characteristics of raisins prepared from fairly well-matured grapes containing at least 55% water by weight and these raisins also contain less than 19% moisture, by weight
37.
Dried fruit
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Dried fruit is fruit from which the majority of the original water content has been removed either naturally, through sun drying, or through the use of specialized dryers or dehydrators. Dried fruit has a tradition of use dating back to the fourth millennium BC in Mesopotamia, and is prized because of its sweet taste, nutritive value. It is also part of a mixture of distilled spirits and spices, today, dried fruit consumption is widespread. Nearly half of the dried fruits sold are raisins, followed by dates, prunes, figs, apricots, peaches, apples and these are referred to as conventional or traditional dried fruits, fruits that have been dried in the sun or in heated wind tunnel dryers. Many fruits such as cranberries, blueberries, cherries, strawberries, some products sold as dried fruit, like papaya, kiwi fruit and pineapple are most often candied fruit. Dried fruits retain most of the value of fresh fruits. The specific nutrient content of the different dried fruits reflects their fresh counterpart, traditional dried fruit such as raisins, figs, dates, apricots and apples have been a staple of Mediterranean diets for millennia. Drying or dehydration also happened to be the earliest form of preservation, grapes, dates. Early hunter-gatherers observed that these fallen fruit took on an edible form, the latest recorded mention of dried fruits can be found in Mesopotamian tablets dating to about 1700 BC, which contain what are probably the oldest known written recipes. These early civilizations used dates, date juice evaporated into syrup and they included dried fruits in their breads for which they had more than 300 recipes, from simple barley bread for the workers to very elaborate, spiced cakes with honey for the palaces and temples. Because cuneiform was very complex and only scribes who had studied for years could read it, it is unlikely that the tablets were meant for everyday cooks or chefs, instead they were written to document the culinary art of the times. Many recipes are quite elaborate and have rare ingredients so we may assume that they represent Mediterranean haute cuisine, the date palm was one of the first cultivated trees. It was domesticated in Mesopotamia more than 5,000 years ago and it grew abundantly in the Fertile Crescent and it was so productive that dates were the cheapest of staple foods. Because they were so valuable they were recorded in Assyrian and Babylonian monuments. The villagers in Mesopotamia dried them and ate them as sweets, whether fresh, soft-dried or hard-dried, they helped to give character to meat dishes and grain pies. They were valued by travelers for their energy and were recommended as stimulants against fatigue, Figs were also prized in early Mesopotamia, Israel and Egypt where their daily use was probably greater than or equal to that of dates. As well as appearing in paintings, many specimens have been found in Egyptian tombs as funerary offerings. In Greece and Crete, figs grew very readily and they were the staple of poor and rich alike, grape cultivation first began in Armenia and the eastern regions of the Mediterranean in the 4th century BC
38.
Refried beans
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Refried beans is a dish of cooked and mashed beans and is a traditional staple of Mexican and Tex-Mex cuisine, although each cuisine has a different approach when making the dish. Refried beans are popular in many other Latin American countries. The name is a calque of Spanish frijoles refritos, refritos meaning well-fried. In this dish, after being boiled and then mashed into a paste, the beans are sometimes then fried or baked, though usually neither, thus making the term refried even more misleading. The raw beans can be cooked when dry or soaked overnight, then stewed, drained of most of the remaining liquid, some of the drained liquid, or chicken or vegetable stock, is added if the consistency is too dry. The paste is then baked or fried, usually with onion and garlic in an amount of lard, vegetable oil, bacon drippings or butter and seasoned to taste with salt. Lard is generally used more often in Mexico, and it has an effect on flavor. Epazote is a herb used to add a special and unique flavor. It is also a carminative, which means it reduces the gas associated with beans, in a home meal, refried beans typically serve as the side dish accompanying a larger meal, or rolled in a tortilla to form a bean burrito. In the US, refried beans are most commonly made from pinto beans and they are served as a side dish with most Tex-Mex restaurant meals. They also have become popular as a dip for corn tortilla chips. Refried beans are also an ingredient in many tostada, chimichanga. In addition, they are an ingredient in layered dips
39.
Coffee
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Coffee is a brewed drink prepared from roasted coffee beans, which are the seeds of berries from the Coffea plant. The genus Coffea is native to tropical Africa, and Madagascar, the two most commonly grown are the highly regarded arabica, and the less sophisticated but stronger and more hardy robusta. Once ripe, coffee berries are picked, processed, and dried, dried coffee seeds are roasted to varying degrees, depending on the desired flavor. Roasted beans are ground and brewed with boiling water to produce coffee as a beverage. Coffee is slightly acidic and can have an effect on humans because of its caffeine content. Coffee is one of the most popular drinks in the world and it can be prepared and presented in a variety of ways. It is usually served hot, although iced coffee is also served, the earliest credible evidence of coffee-drinking appears in the middle of the 15th century in the Sufi shrines of Yemen. It was here in Arabia that coffee seeds were first roasted and brewed in a way to how it is now prepared. Coffee seeds were first exported from East Africa to Yemen, as the coffea arabica plant is thought to have been indigenous to the former, yemeni traders took coffee back to their homeland and began to cultivate the seed. By the 16th century, it had reached Persia, Turkey, from there, it spread to Europe and the rest of the world. Coffee is an export commodity, it is the top agricultural export for numerous countries and is among the worlds largest legal agricultural exports. It is one of the most valuable commodities exported by developing countries, green coffee is one of the most traded agricultural commodities in the world. Consequently, the markets for fair trade coffee and organic coffee are expanding. The first reference to coffee in the English language is in the form chaona, dated to 1598 and understood to be a misprint of chaoua, equivalent, in the orthography of the time, to chaova. This term and coffee both derive from the Ottoman Turkish kahve, by way of the Italian caffè and it has also been proposed that the source may be the Proto-Central Semitic root q-h-h meaning dark. Alternatively, the word Khat, a plant widely used as stimulant in Yemen and Ethiopia before being supplanted by coffee has been suggested as a possible origin, the expression coffee break was first attested in 1952. The term coffee pot dates from 1705, other accounts attribute the discovery of coffee to Sheikh Omar. According to the ancient chronicle, Omar, who was known for his ability to cure the sick through prayer, was exiled from Mocha in Yemen to a desert cave near Ousab
40.
Chiapas
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Chiapas, officially the Free and Sovereign State of Chiapas, is one of the 31 states that, with the Federal District, make up the 32 federal entities of Mexico. It is divided into 122 municipalities and its capital city is Tuxtla Gutiérrez, other important population centers in Chiapas include Ocosingo, Tapachula, San Cristóbal de las Casas, Comitán and Arriaga. Chiapas has a coastline along the Pacific Ocean to the south, in general, Chiapas has a humid, tropical climate. In the north, in the area bordering Tabasco, near Teapa, in the past, natural vegetation at this region was lowland, tall perennial rainforest, but this vegetation has been destroyed almost completely to give way to agriculture and ranching. Rainfall decreases moving towards the Pacific Ocean, but it is abundant enough to allow the farming of bananas. Chiapas is home to the ancient Mayan ruins of Palenque, Yaxchilán, Bonampak and it is also home to one of the largest indigenous populations in the country with twelve federally recognized ethnicities. Much of the history is centered on the subjugation of these peoples with occasional rebellions. The last of these rebellions was the 1994 Zapatista uprising, which succeeded in obtaining new rights for indigenous people, the official name of the state is Chiapas. The name derives from Chiapan or Tepechiapan, the name of an indigenous population, the term, from Nahuatl, may mean sage seed hill or water below the hill. After the Spanish arrived, they established two cities called Chiapas de los Indios and Chiapas de los Españoles, with the name of Provincia de Chiapas for the area around the cities, the first coat of arms of the region dates from 1535 as that of the Ciudad Real. Chiapas painter Javier Vargas Ballinas designed the coat of arms. Hunter gatherers began to occupy the valley of the state around 7000 BCE. The oldest archaeological remains in the seat are located at the Santa Elena Ranch in Ocozocoautla whose finds include tools, in the pre Classic period from 1800 BCE to 300 CE, agricultural villages appeared all over the state although hunter gather groups would persist for long after the era. There is speculation that these were the forefathers of the Olmec, migrating across the Grijalva Valley and onto the plain of the Gulf of Mexico to the north. One of these peoples ancient cities is now the site of Chiapa de Corzo. This is three hundred years before the Mayans developed their calendar, the descendants of Mokaya are the Mixe-Zoque. During the pre Classic era, it is known that most of Chiapas was not Olmec, olmec-influenced sculpture can be found in Chiapas and products from the state including amber, magnetite, and ilmenite were exported to Olmec lands. The Olmecs came to what is now the northwest of the looking for amber with one of the main evidences for this called the Simojovel Ax
41.
Veracruz
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It is divided in 212 municipalities and its capital city is Xalapa-Enríquez. This state is located in Eastern Mexico and it is bordered by the states of Tamaulipas to the north, San Luis Potosí and Hidalgo to the west, Puebla to the southwest, Oaxaca and Chiapas to the south, and Tabasco to the southeast. On its east, Veracruz has a significant share of the coastline of the Gulf of Mexico, the state is noted for its mixed ethnic and indigenous populations. Its cuisine reflects the cultural influences that have come through the state because of the importance of the port of Veracruz. In addition to the city, the states largest cities include Veracruz, Coatzacoalcos, Córdoba, Minatitlán, Poza Rica, Boca Del Río. The full name of the state is Veracruz de Ignacio de la Llave, Veracruz was named after the city of Veracruz, which was originally called the Villa Rica de la Vera Cruz. The suffix is in honor of Ignacio de la Llave y Segura Zevallos, the state’s seal was authorized by the state legislature in 1954, adapting the one used for the port of Veracruz and created by the Spanish in the early 16th century. The state is a strip of land wedged between the Sierra Madre Oriental to the west and the Gulf of Mexico to the east. Its total area is 78,815 km2, accounting for about 3. 7% of Mexico’s total territory and it stretches about 650 km north to south, but its width varies from between 212 km to 36 km, with an average of about 100 km in width. Veracruz shares common borders with the states of Tamaulipas, Oaxaca and Chiapas, Tabasco, and Puebla, Hidalgo, Veracruz has 690 km of coastline with the Gulf of Mexico. The topography changes drastically, rising from the coastal plains to the highlands of the eastern Sierra Madre. Elevation varies from sea level to the Pico de Orizaba, Mexico’s highest peak at 5,636 m above sea level, the coast consists of low sandy strips interspersed with tidewater streams and lagoons. Most of the coastline is narrow and sandy with unstable dunes, small shifting lagoons. The mountains are of the Sierra Madre Oriental and the Trans-Mexican Volcanic Belt, major peaks include Pico de Orizaba, Cofre de Perote, Cerro de Tecomates, Cerro del Vigía Alta and Cerro de 3 Tortas. The Pico de Orizaba is covered in snow year round, the Cofre de Perote is covered in winter, major valleys include the Acultzingo, Córdoba, Maltrata, Orizaba and San Andrés. All of the rivers and streams cross the state begin in the Sierra Madre Oriental or in the Central Mesa. The largest in terms of discharge are the Pánuco, Tuxpan, Papaloapan, Coazocoalcos. The Panuco, Tuxpan, Papaloapan and Coatzacoalcos are navigable, two of Mexicos most polluted rivers, the Coatzacoalcos and the Río Blanco are located in the state
42.
La Huasteca
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It is roughly defined as the area in which the Huastec people had influence when their civilization was at its height in the Mesoamerican period. Today, the Huastecs occupy only a fraction of this region with the Nahua people now the most numerous indigenous group. However, those who live in the share a number of cultural traits such as a style of music and dance. Historically and ethnically, the La Huasteca region is defined by the area dominated by the Huastecs at their height, the actual extension of the region is somewhat disputed as well as how it should be sub-divided. Geographically it has defined as from the Sierra Madre Oriental to the Gulf of Mexico with the Sierra de Tamaulipas as the north border. To the north and east there are relative flatlands, to the south there are hills of calcified sand. Basalt from old lava flows penetrate the primarily sedimentary rock from the west and appear with wind, the higher mountain areas to the west often have tall peaks in capricious forms with steep slopes and eight fast running rivers. Highways in the region tend to be small and winding, especially in the elevations in San Luis Potosí. Most of these river eventually empty into either the Pánuco or the Cazones River with the zone belonging to the Pánuco, Tuxpan and Cazones River basins, as much of the rock is easily eroded, the mountain areas are filled with caves and other underground openings. The best known of this is the Sótano de las Golandrinas just north of Xilitla and it is famous for the large number of birds that emerge from the opening in the morning. It is also a site for base-jumping down the sink’s 372-meter depth, the birds return en masse again at nightfall. Many of the rivers run clear or turquoise blue in deep ravines or canyons, the tallest of these is the Tamil, which is 300 meters wide and 105 meters tall. It joins the waters of the Gallinas River with those of the Santa Maria to form the Tampaon River and it is one of the most bio-diverse regions in Mexico, with over 2,000 species of plants. This diversity also extends into agricultural crops with local corn varieties resistant to drought, tropical forests have species such as kapok, cedar, ebony and more with palms more common on the coastline. Tall growth perennial rainforest dominates in the states of Hidalgo and Veracruz with medium grown semi deciduous rainforest in San Luis Potosí and it also has a large number of species of algae, more diverse and of different types than those found in other parts of Mexico. It is also rich in such as parrots, macaws, spider monkeys, owls, eagles, toucans, deer, jaguar, wild boar and raccoons with various species of reptiles. The main city in the SLP section is Ciudad Valles, founded by Nuño Beltran de Guzmán in 1533, the most important city in the Hidalgo portion is Huejutla. Other important population centers include Tantoyuca, Tamazunchale and Chicontepec, one section of the La Huasteca is called the Sierra Gorda, which is centered on northern Querétaro, but extends into Hidalgo and Guanajuato
43.
Chard
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Chard is a leafy green vegetable often used in Mediterranean cooking. In the Flavescens-Group-cultivars, the stalks are large and are often prepared separately from the leaf blade. The leaf blade can be green or reddish in color, the leaf also vary in color, usually white, yellow. Chard has highly nutritious leaves making it an addition to healthful diets. Chard has been around for centuries, but because of its similarity to other beets and some vegetables such as cardoon. Chard was first described in 1753 by Carl von Linné as Beta vulgaris var. cicla and its taxonomic rank has changed many times, so it was treated as a subspecies, convariety or variety of Beta vulgaris. The accepted name for all beet cultivars, like chard, sugar beet and they are cultivated descendants of the sea beet, Beta vulgaris subsp. Chard belongs to the chenopods, which are now included in the family Amaranthaceae. There are two rankless cultivar groups for chard, the Cicla-Group for the leafy spinach beet, and the Flavescens-Group for the stalky Swiss chard. Chard is also known by common names, such as Swiss chard, silver beet, perpetual spinach, beet spinach, seakale beet. The word chard descends from the fourteenth-century French carde, from Latin carduus meaning artichoke thistle, the origin of the adjective Swiss is unclear, since the Mediterranean plant is not native to Switzerland, nor particularly commonly cultivated there. Some attribute the name to it having been first described by a Swiss botanist, clusters of chard seeds are usually sown, in the Northern Hemisphere, between June and October, depending on the desired harvesting period. Chard can be harvested while the leaves are young and tender, harvesting is a continuous process, as most species of chard produce three or more crops. Cultivars of chard include green forms, such as Lucullus and Fordhook Giant, as well as red-ribbed forms such as Ruby Chard, the red-ribbed forms are attractive in the garden, but as a general rule, the older green forms tend to outproduce the colorful hybrids. Rainbow Chard is a mix of other colored varieties that is mistaken for a variety unto itself. Chard has shiny, green, ribbed leaves, with petioles that range from white to yellow to red, Chard is a spring harvest plant. In the Northern Hemisphere, chard is typically ready to harvest as early as April, Chard is one of the hardier leafy greens, with a harvest season typically lasting longer than kale, spinach or baby greens. When daytime temperatures start to regularly hit 30 °C, the harvest season is coming to an end, fresh young chard can be used raw in salads
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Nicaragua
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Nicaragua, officially the Republic of Nicaragua, is the largest country in the Central American isthmus. Nicaraguas capital, Managua, is the countrys largest city and the third-largest city in Central America, the multi-ethnic population of six million includes indigenous peoples, Europeans, Africans, and Asians. Native tribes on the eastern coast speak their own languages, the Spanish Empire conquered the region in the 16th century. Nicaragua gained independence from Spain in 1821, since its independence, Nicaragua has undergone periods of political unrest, dictatorship, and fiscal crisis—the most notable causes that led to the Nicaraguan Revolution of the 1960s and 1970s. Nicaragua is a democratic republic. The biological diversity, warm climate and active volcanoes make Nicaragua an increasingly popular tourist destination. The name Nicaragua was coined by Spanish colonists based on the name Nicarao, when Spaniard Gil González Dávila came to Nicaragua in 1521 he found in the areas between Rivas and San Jorge the first pre-Columbian natives of Nicaragua. At the time the city was called Quauhcapolca and the cacique leaders name was Macuilmiquiztli. The Pipil migrated to Nicaragua from central Mexico after 500 BC, meanwhile, the Caribbean coast of Nicaragua was inhabited by other peoples, mostly Chibcha language groups. They had coalesced in Central America and migrated also to present-day northern Colombia and they lived a life based primarily on hunting and gathering. In 1502, Christopher Columbus became the first European known to have reached what is now Nicaragua as he sailed southeast toward the Isthmus of Panama, on his fourth voyage, Columbus explored the Miskito Coast on the Atlantic side of Nicaragua. The Spanish attempted to convert all three tribes to Christianity, Nicaragua and Nicarao and their people converted, but Dirangen, however, did not, the first attempt to conquer what is now known as Nicaragua was by Gil González Dávila, who arrived in Panama in January 1520. The first Spanish permanent settlements were founded in 1524, conquistador Francisco Hernández de Córdoba founded two of Nicaraguas principal towns in 1524, Granada on Lake Nicaragua was the first settlement, followed by León at a location west of Lake Managua. Córdoba soon built defenses for the cities and fought against incursions by other conquistadors, Córdoba was later publicly beheaded following a power struggle with Pedro Arias Dávila. His tomb and remains were discovered in 2000 in the ruins of León Viejo, the clashes among Spanish forces did not impede their destruction of the indigenous people and their culture. The series of battles came to be known as the War of the Captains, Pedro Arias Dávila was a winner, although he had lost control of Panama, he moved to Nicaragua and successfully established his base in León. Through adroit diplomatic machinations, he became the first governor of the colony, many indigenous people died as a result of new infectious diseases, compounded by neglect by the Spaniards, who controlled their subsistence. In 1610, the Momotombo volcano erupted, destroying the capital and it was rebuilt northwest of what is now known as the ruins of Old León
45.
Nacatamal
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A nacatamal is a dish found in Nicaragua, Costa Rica, and Honduras similar to the tamal. It is common to enjoy nacatamales during special occasions and to invite extended family, a nacatamal is made up of mostly nixtamalized corn masa and lard, but includes seasonings such as salt and achiote. This combination is traditionally cooked in a large batch over a wood fire, the result becomes the base for the nacatamal and it is also referred to as masa. This base is ladled onto plantain leaves used for wrapping into large individual portions, the leaves undergo their own preparation separately. Before a nacatamal can be wrapped and brought to the last stage of the cooking process, on occasion, prunes, raisins or capers can be added. The masa and filling are then wrapped in the leaves, tied with a string. They are then steamed or pressure-cooked for several hours, the entire process is very labor-intensive and it often requires preparation over the course of two days, it may be necessary to involve the whole family to complete it. Nacatamales can also be made pindongo for religious reasons like the Nicaraguan-Jewish community or with no chile, traditionally, nacatamales are not vegetarian, as they use lard in the masa, but as vegetarianism becomes more popular, it is certainly possible to make a vegetarian nacatamal. The process for it would be the same, except that the meat would be out or could be substituted for another protein source such as tofu. Vegetable oil can be substituted for the lard, List of maize dishes List of stuffed dishes Food portal
46.
Belize
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Belize, formerly British Honduras, is an independent country on the eastern coast of Central America. Belize is bordered on the north by Mexico, on the south and west by Guatemala and its mainland is about 290 km long and 110 km wide. Belize has an area of 22,800 square kilometres and a population of 368,310 and it has the lowest population density in Central America. The countrys population growth rate of 1. 87% per year is the second highest in the region, Belizes abundance of terrestrial and marine species and its diversity of ecosystems gives it a key place in the globally significant Mesoamerican Biological Corridor. Belize has a society, composed of many cultures and languages that reflect its rich history. English is the language of Belize, with Belizean Kriol being the unofficial language. Over half the population is multilingual, with Spanish being the second most common spoken language, Belize is considered a Central American and Caribbean nation with strong ties to both the Latin American and Caribbean regions. Belize is a Commonwealth realm, with Queen Elizabeth II as its monarch, Belize is known for its September Celebrations, its extensive coral reefs, and punta music. The origin of the name Belize remains unclear, the earliest known record of the name appears in the journal of the Dominican priest Fray José Delgado, dating to 1677. Delgado recorded the names of three rivers that he crossed while travelling north along the Caribbean coast, Rio Soyte, Rio Xibum. The names of these waterways, which correspond to the Sittee River, Sibun River and it is likely that Delgados Balis was actually the Mayan word belix, meaning muddy-watered. Others have suggested that the name derives from a Spanish pronunciation of the name of the Scottish buccaneer Peter Wallace, there is no proof that Wallace settled in this area and some scholars have characterized this claim as a myth. Writers and historians have suggested other possible etymologies, including postulated French. Many aspects of this culture persist in the area despite nearly 500 years of European domination, prior to about 2500 BC, some hunting and foraging bands settled in small farming villages, they later domesticated crops such as corn, beans, squash, and chili peppers. A profusion of languages and subcultures developed within the Maya core culture, between about 2500 BC and 250 AD, the basic institutions of Maya civilisation emerged. The peak of this occurred during the classic period, which began about 250 AD. The Maya civilisation spread across what is now Belize around 1500 BC, the recorded history of the middle and southern regions is dominated by Caracol, an urban political centre that may have supported over 140,000 people. North of the Maya Mountains, the most important political centre was Lamanai, in the late Classic Era of Maya civilisation, as many as 1 million people may have lived in the area that is now Belize
Cookbook: Tamale 
Media: Tamale
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