"He sells meat tamales; turkey meat packets; plain tamales; tamales cooked in an earth oven; those cooked in an olla...grains of maize with chile, tamales with chile...fish tamales, fish with grains of maize, frog tamales, frog with grains of maize, axolotl with grains of maize, axolotl tamales, tamales with grains of maize, mushrooms with grains of maize, tuna cactus with grains of maize, rabbit tamales, rabbit with grains of maize, pocket gopher tamales: tasty--tasty, very tasty...Where [it is] tasty, [it has] chile, salt, tomates, squash seeds: shredded, crumbled, juiced. He sells tamales of maize softened in wood ashes, the water of tamales, tamales of maize softened in lime--narrow tamales, fruit tamales, cooked bean tamales,; cooked beans with grains of maize, cracked beans with grains of maize; broke, cracked grains of maize. [He sells] salted wide tamales, tamales bound up on top, [with] grains of maize thrown in; crumbled, pounded tamales; spotted tamales, pointed tamales, white fruit tamales, red fruit tamales, turkey egg tamales, turkey eggs with grains of maize; tamales of tender maize, tamales of green maize, brick-shaped tamales, braised ones; plain tamales, honey tamales, bee tamales, tamales with grains of maize, squash tamales, crumbled tamales, maize flower tamales. The bed food seller [is] he who sells filthy tamales, discolored tamales--broken, tasteless, quite tasteless, inedible, frightenting, deceiving; tamales made of chaff, swollen tamales, spoiled tamales, foul tamales--sticky, gummy; old tamales, cold tamales-- dirty and sour, very sour, exceedingly sour, stinking. The food seller sells tortillas which [are] thick, thickish, thick overall, extremely thick; he sells thin [ones]--thin tortillas, stretch-out tortillas,; disclike, straight...with shelled beans, cooked shelled beans, uncooked shelled beans; with shelled beans mahsed; chile with maize, tortillas with meat and grains of maize, folded...with chile--chile wrapped, gathered in the hand; ashen tortillas, washed tortillas. He sells folded tortillas, thick tortillas, coarse tortillas. He sells tortillas with turkey eggs, tortillas made with honey, pressed ones, glove-shaped tortillas, plain tortillas, assorted ones, braised ones, sweet tortillas, amaranth seed tortillas, squash tortillas, green maize tortillas, brick-shaped tortillas, tuna cactus tortillas; broken, crumbled, old tortillas; cold tortillas, toasted ones, dried tortillas, stinking tortillas. He sells foods sauces, hot sauces; fried [food], olla-cooked [food], juices, sauces of juices, shredded [food] with chile, with squash seeds, with tomatoes, with smoked chile, with hot chile, with yellow chile, with mild red chile sauce, yellow chile sauce, hot chile sauce, with "bird excrement" sauce, sauce of smoked chile, heated [sauces], bean sauce; [he sells] toasted beans, cooked beans, mushroom sauce, sauce of small squash, sauce of large tomatoes, sauce of ordinary tomatoes, sauce of various kinds of sour herbs, avocado sauce. (Sahagun 1950-1982, 10:69-70, retranslated)" ---America's First Cuisines, Sophie D. Coe [University of Texas Press:Austin TX] 1994 (p. 116-7)



Ancient chocolate

Ancient Aztec and Mayan cultures highly valued cacao and chocolate. They consumed it, in beverage form, for religious ceremonies and medicinal purposes. Cocoa beans were sometimes used as money. Many people are surprised to learn the Aztecs did not cook with chocolate. That practice was introduced by the Spanish. Mole Poblano, a popular Mexican holiday recipe combining chocolate and chilies, was not eaten by the Aztecs.

According to the food historians, the Ancient Aztecs used many substances to flavor their chocolate drink. In fact? Drinking chocolate without adding flavorings, spices and other additions was almost unheard of. One of the most popular additions was powdered chilli (Capsicum annum). Maize was sometimes added as filler. Flowers were popular flavorings. There were were several, including chili! Chocolate was generally consumed cool, not hot like we Americans do today. About modern hot chocolate & cocoa.

"The idea of using chocolate as a flavoring in cook food would have been horrifying to the Aztecs--just as Christians could not conceive of using communion wine to make, say, coq au vin. In all of the pages of Sahagun that deal with Aztec cuisine and with chocolate, there is not a hint that it ever entered into an Aztec dish."

---True History of Chocolate, Sophie D. Coe & Michael D. Coe [Thames & Hudson:London] 2nd edition 2007 (p. 214-215)

[NOTE: this book offers much more information than can be paraphrased here. Your librarian can help you obtain a copy.]

"The chocolate-related documents that survive from the pre-Columbian era provide information only on medicinal recipes; we found no primary documentation that identified ingredients used to prepare chocolate for personal consumption. Recipes for pre-Columbian era medicinal chocolate are uncommon, but the following examples may be identified. Chocolate (unmixed with other products; very bitter) was drink by the Mexica/Aztecs to treat stomach and intestinal complaints; when combined with liquid extruded from the bark of the silk cotton tree..this beverage was use by traditional healers to cure infections. In another recipe prescribe to reduce fever and prevent fainting, 8-10 cacao beans were ground along with dried maize kernels; this powder then was mixed with tlacoxoshitl...and the resulting beverage was drunk...Eyewitness accounts describe a diner held in 1520 at Tenochtitlan, the Mexica/Aztec capitol, when Montezuma dined with Cortes and his Spanish Officers. At this meal the Mexica/Aztec king reportedly drank chocolate from cups of pure gold."

---Chocolate: History, Culture and Heritage, Louis Evan Grivetti & Howard-Yana Shapiro [Wiley:New York] 2009 (p. 100)

[NOTE: this book offers extensive descriptions and translated excerpts from primary documents describing Early New Spain chocolate recipes. Your local public librarian will be happy to help you obtain a copy.]

About chocolate beverages & flavorings

"Among the more well-known spices were chenopodium, coriander and sage. Vanilla, extracted from the pods of a species of orchid, was among the most esteemed flavorings. Chocolate was prepared by grinding roasted cacao beans, sometimes with parched corn, and them mixing the powder with vanilla orchid pods or sweetened with honey. Like tea and coffee, this beverage is rich in caffeine and was much prized in ancient Mesoamerica."

---The Aztecs, Townsend (p. 173)

"Universally popular throughout Mesoamerica was the addition to the drink [chocolate] of chilli (Capsicum annum), dried and ground to a powder. The molina vocabulary calls the drink chilacacahuatl; of coruse, given the extraodinary array of chillis grown in Mexico, it could have been anywhere from mildly pungent to extremely hot...Sahagun's native informants gave him a menu of choclate drinks served to the ruler...'Then by himself in his house, his chocolate was served: green cacao-pods, honeyed chocolate, flowered chocolate, flavored with green vanilla, bright red chocolate, huitztexcolli-flower chocolate, flower-colored chocolate, black chocolate, white chocolate"...Fransico Hernandez gives us a chocolate recipe...What is interesting about Hernandez's recipe is that it contains three flavorings which we know were highly prized by the Aztecs. Th first is hueinacaztli, the thick, ear-shaped petal of the flower of Cymbopetalum pendulifolorum, a tree of the Annonaceae or custard-apple family, which grows in the tropical lowland forests of Veracruz, Oazaca, and Chiapas; this was one of the most valued products brought back by the pochtexa merchants from the expeditions. It is a confusing plant, because it has a least three Nahuatl names: it may be called hueinacaztli ("great ear"), teonacaztli ("divine ear"), or xochinacaztli ("flowry ear"). The distinguishing feature is the ending nacaztli, meaning "ear."...Be that is at may, Cymbopetalum penduliflorum was the premier chocolate flavor among the Aztecs...What did this flower taste like, once it have been turned into powder and added to the fine cacao? Sahagun as usual cautions against taking too much of it, warning that excess could lead to drunkenness...The second of Hernandez's reputedly aphrodesiac trio was tlilxochitl ("black flower"), none other than our familiar vanillla (Vanilla planifolia). In contradiction to his Nahuatl name, the vanilla flower is acutally greenish yellow; the plant is a climbing orchid, and it is the pod that is black...The last in Hernandez's trio of chocolate flavorings is mecaxochitl ("string flower"). This is a member of the genus Piper, probably Piper sanctum, and therefore actually related to black pepper. The flowers, said to be white by some and black by others, are tiny and packed on to an inflorescence. According to Hernandez, "taken with cachuatl [cacao] it gives an agreeable taste, is tonic, warms the stomach, perfumes the breath...combats poisons, [and] alleviates intestinal pains and colics." ...This by no means completes the inventory of Aztec chocolate flavorings. Two varieties of Magnolia mexicana could be added, although drying the flowers causes them to lose their fragrance while at the same time rationing their astringency. The flowers are shaped like a heart, hence the Nahuatl name yolloxochitl ("heart flower")...The "heart flower" tree, like the rest of the Magnolia family and genus, contains alkaloids; if the seeds and flowers of Magnolia mexicana are cooked in water and administered to a patient, they are supposed to augment the pulse and regularize the heartbeat, but an overdose causes arrhythmia...Izquixochitl ("popcorn flower") can be any one of several species of Bourreria in the borage family...Sahagun directs us to use it in chilled chocolate." ---True History of Chocolate, Sophie D. Coe and Michael D. Coe [Thames and Hudson:New York] 1996 (p. 89-92)

How was the chocolate drink made?

"The basic Aztec method of preparing chocolate...was about the same as that prevalent among the Maya; the only real difference is that it seems to have been drunk cool rather than hot as seems to have been the case among the Maya of Yucatan. One of the earliest notices of this drink is by the hand of a man known to scholars as the Anonymous Conqueror, described as "a gentleman of Hernan Cortez," whos description of Tenochtitlan was published in Venice in 1556: These seeds which are called almonds or cacao are ground and made into powder, and other small seeds are ground, and this powder is put into certain basins with a point... and then they put water on it and mix it with a spoon. And after having mixed it very well, they change it from one basin to another, so that a foam is raised which they put in a vessel made for the purpose. And when they wish to drink it, they mix it with certain small spoons of gold or silver or wood, and drink it, and drinking it one must open one's mouth, because being foam one must give it room to subside, and go down bit by bit. This drink is the healthiest thing, and the greatest sustenance of anything you could drink in the world, because he who drinks a cup of this liquid, no matter how far he walks, can go a whole day without eating anything else.' To this encomium the Anonymous Conqueror adds the comment that "it is better in hot weather than in cool, being cold is its nature...According to Sahagun's native informants, fine chocolate was called tlaquetzalli ("precious thing"), and was prepared by the seller in this way: She grinds cacao [beans]; she crushes, breaks, pulverizes them. She chooses, selects, separates them. She drenches, soaks, steeps them. She adds water sparingly, conservativley; aerates it, filters it, strains it, pours it back and forth, aerates it; she makes it form a head, makes foam; she removes the head, makes it thicken, makes it dry, pours water in, stirs water into it.' The inferior product, the informatns tell us, was mixed with nixtuamalli and water--in other words, a chocolate-with-maize gruel drink...There is no mention in these primary sources of the grooved wooden beater or swizzle stick (Spanish molinillo) for the production of the much-prized foam, nor does any word for it appear in the first Nahuatl-Spanish dictionary, that of Alonso de Molina, published in Mexico City in 1571. This item, so important later on in chocolate preparation in America and Europe, must have been introduced from Spain during the 16th century. By the time the Jesuit Francesco Saverio Clavigero published his detailed report on native Mexican live and hsitory (in 1780, in Italian), he describes the use of the molinillo, but totally omits the pouring from one vessel to another to produce a good head on the drink...There is, however, ample mention of stirrers or stirring spoons. These were fashioned from tortoise or sea turtle shell. Some of these survived the Conquest, for among the confiscated goods of two Aztec sorcerers arested by the early Spanish Inquisition were many of these stirrers, along with cacao and the cups from wich chocolate was drunk. Which brings us to the cups themselves. A reading of our sources indicates that these were small, hemispherical bowls which could be of polychrome creamic; calabash gourd...painted or lacquered with designs; and even gold, in the case of the huei tlatoani."

---True History of Chocolate, Sophie D. Coe and Michael D. Coe [Thames & Hudson:London] 1996 (p. 86-88)

[NOTE: This book contains far more information than can be paraphrased here. It also includes notes on the use of chocolate in Mayan civization.]

Need a recipe for class?

Here is the recipe for Mexican hot chocolate from Food and Feasts with the Aztecs, Imogene Dawson (p. 29). It is adapted for modern kitchens:

"Mexican hot chocolate

Ingredients

1/2 lb semisweet cooking chocolate

4 cups milk

1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon

2 drops vanilla

1. Break the chocolate into small pieces. Put the pieces in the top of a double boiler or into the heatproof bowl.

2. Fill the bottom of the double boiler or a large saucepan with cold water. Then bring the water to a boil. Turn the heat down so that the water continues to boil gently.

3. Put the container with the chocolate over the one with the boiling water. With a wooden spoon, stir the chocolate until it has melted.

4. Measure out the milk and pour it into another saucepan. Heat the milk gently but do not let it boil. Pour the melted chocolate into the hot milk.

5. Add the cinnamon and the vanilla to the mixture and bring the mixture to a boil.

6. Turn the heat down and whisk the mixture for 2 minutes until it is foaming.

7. Pour the chocolate into mugs and use the small whisk to whisk the chocolate again, so that there is foam on the top of each mug." Makes 4 mugs.

NOTES:

1. Cooking with boiling water and sharp knives can be very dangerous. Have an adult help you in the kitchen.

2. Before you bring this in to class, print a copy of this recipe and give it to your teacher. She can tell you if anyone is allergic to any of the ingredients. Maya What we know about Mayan cuisine in the earliest eras is constructed primarily from archaeolgical evidence. Spanish missionaries chronicled 16th century foods in great detail. Presumably, many of the foods consumed by Mayas in the 16th century were traditional foods with centuries of history. Maize was the staple food .

Ancient Mayan foods

"Maya food was that of a civilization which, unlike those of the Aztecs and Inca...had been in severe decline for many centuries before the voyages of Columbus opened the way for the Spanish conquest. However, the Maya remained an important ethnic group in SE. Mexico and C. America, and their history is an important part of American history. Were it not for the fact that all their books but four have perished, and that until very recently it had not been possible to decode their hieroglyphics, much more would be known and written about them...Maize was the staple food and had great cultural significance, figuring in all important sites such as those attending births and deaths. It was consumed in many ways: in liquid form, as posole or atole...as a gruel; and as breadstuff, in tortillas and tamales...Among the flesh foods, the turkey was important. It seems that both available species were eaten, the domesticated on how familiar worldwide and the ocellated turkey. Iguana meat was appreciated and the bones of that animal from at least one archaeolgical site are darkened, suggesting that it was roasted, possible on a a barbacoa (barbecue). There is evidence of numerous other animals such as armadillo, tapir, monkey, and the manatee...being eaten...Fish and seafood were much consumed in coastal areas, and there is also evidence of trade in conserved fish and consumption of small freshwater fish. In short, a wider variety of foods were eaten then than in modern times...Beekeeping...and honey were important features of Mesoamerican life; the Maya certainly used honey to sweeten some maize drinks, but it is not clear whether thay used it for preserves or confectionery. Chocolate, one of the great gifts of the New World to the Old, is often thought of as an Aztec thing. The Maya, however, were familiar with it many centuries earlier, using cacao beans as currency and drinking chocolate (although it is not known whether they reserved the beverage for ceremonial occasions or had it regularly)."

---Oxford Companion to Food, Alan Davidson [Oxford University Press:Oxford] 1999 (p. 485-6)

"The study of Maya agricultural life is based on existing methods, archaeological finds, botanical and geographical observations, and sixteenth-century sources, many of which are quite detailed, but tell of customs in a less populous time. Some of the customs can be projected to the Classic period, but allowances must be made for a great deals of change. Although many observations and studies have been made, the overall pictures is still unclear. The Maize was prepared by boiling or soaking it in lime water and then draining it in a gourd colander. While it was still wet, it was ground on a metate--as small stone table--with a mano, a cylindrical handstone. The resulting paste was most commonly mixed with water to make pozole, a thin gruel, or formed into cakes, the still familiar tortillas, which were roasted on a flat pottery griddle and eaten with beans or chili. On special occasions chocolate was mixed with ground maize and spiced with chili. Beans and squash were often planted in the same hole with the maize or the rows between. There were numerous varieties of squash and pumpkin, and two varieties of beans, a red one and a black one. A traveler in the area today is aware of the ubiquitous frijole. Chili peppers, tomatoes, yucca, and sweet potatoes were also sometimes planted in the same field. Many of the foods of the Maya, both ancient and modern, are strange to us, such as manioc, chaya, and jicama; but other fruits and vegetables are found in today's supermarkets--avocados, sweet potatoes, guavas, and tomatoes--or are the sources of such familiar foods and seasonings as vanilla beans, chili peppers...chocolate. Several important food plants my have been developed by the Maya--cacao, manioc, the papaya, and the avocado pear...Most of the secondary food crops of the Central area were fruits...The breadnut tree...is frequently found around ruins. Other trees, both wild and domesticated, found in the area included hog plums, nance plums and guavas...The Maya hunted in the grassy savannas that dot the Lowland jungle, using traps and spears; the bow and arrow were not introduced until after the Classic period. The Maya was a considerate hunter, killing only what he needed...In addition to deer, the ancient Maya hunted birds...wild turkeys, curassows, wild boar * , rabbits, peccaries, and armadilows. Other sources of protein were fish, turtles, iguanas, and insects. There were fresh-water fish, and Yucatan, with its long seacoast, provided salt-water fish that could be dried or salted for shipment...Landa described the diet of the sixteenth-century Maya...In the evening they ate stews of vegetables and deer meat, fish, or the meat of wild or tame birds. For special feasts they had roasted fowl, bread, and a drink made from cacao."

---The Maya World, Elizabeth P. Benson, revised edition [Thomas Y. Crowell:New York] 1977 (p. 61-4)

[ * : Wild boar was an "Old World" animal, introduced to Maya cuisine by the Spanish. Ancient Maya consumed a boar-like mammal called a peccary:

"Peccary...American animals which look something like a small wild pig, and are sometimes so called, but which belong to a different family, Tayassuidae. This family is the New World counterpart of the pig family in the Old World. The peccary is...also called musk hog. The range of the peccary is from S. Brazil to Arizona in the USA. It is eaten localy but is not accounted as a delicacy. For the Maya people, however, it was a food resource of some significance. The region of C. America which they inhabited was not rich, in pre-Columbian times, in edible animals." ---Oxford Companion to Food, Alan Davidson [Oxford University Press:Oxford] 2nd edition 2007 (p. 593)

"Peccary, Javelin...Both the White-lipped and the White-collared Peccaries are extensively hunted for their flesh in Tropical America. Peccary meat is far superior to ordinary pork, being much mroe delicate and with a richer, wild game flavor." ---Foods America Gave the World, A, Hyatt Verrill [L.C. Page:Boston] 1937 (p. 267)

[7000BC-2000BC] ARCHAIC PERIOD

"By about 7000 BC, the ice sheets which had covered much of North America in the height latitudes were in full retreat, and during the next 5,500 years the climate of the world was everywhere warmer than it is today...In upland Mexico,the Indians were diverted to another way of life, based on an intensivired collection of the seeds and roots of wild plants, and upon the killing of smaller, more solitary animals. In their economy, in their semi-nomadic pattern of settlement, and even in the details of their tool-kits, the Mexican Indians of the Archaic period were only part of the "Desert Culture"...It was in Mexico, however, and in this "Desert Culture" contexts, that all the important plant foods of Mesoamerica--maize, beans, squashes, chile peppers, and many others--were first domesticated. It seems likely that the practice of plant cultivation must have reached the Maya area at some times during the Archaic period...a little maize was being grown near the margins of the lake [Petenxil], a good 1,000 years before the first pottery--using farmers are known for the region...a slowly increasing number of grinding tools relating to the processing of seeds and other vegetable materials, and gradually expanding and perhaps seasonal dependence upon marine resources. Unfortunately, preservation of plant materials and faunal remains is poor."

---The Maya, Michael D. Coe, 6th edition [Thames and Hudson:London] 1999 (p. 43-6)

[1800BC-250AD] EARLY PRECLASSICAL PERIOD

"Numerious shell middens located in the mangrove-lined estuaries seem to represent seasonal occupation by somewhat mobile, non-farming groups that largely subsisted upon hunting and fishing...the baghos could have served as sunken fields for agriculture, as they retained enough moisture for a third corn crop to be raised in addition to the two that are normal for the Soconusco plain...Maize cobs are found in Soconusco sites beginning about 1700BC, but these are small and not very productive ears...carbon pathway analysis of human skeletal material has shown that maize was not very important in the diets of these Early Preclassic villagers...[it is] speculated that they might have been relying on manioc or cassava, and ancient root crop of the New World tropics, rather than maize, but the evidence for this remains elusisive."

---The Maya, Coe, 6th edition (p. 46-47)

[1500BC-850 BC]

"Really effective farming...was an innovation of the Formative Period...What brought it about? Some scholars favour the theory that it was a major improvement in the productivity of the maize plant...In those days, settlements were little more than tiny hamlets of sum three to twenty families each...The Early Formative villagers efficiently exploited the rich, brackish water environment, gathering mangrove oysters and marsh clams in great numbers, and taking turtles and crabs, while iguanas...were caught for their tasty flesh and eggs. In the lagoons and nearby rivers they fished for gar, snook, porgy, and catfish...The scarcity or in some cases complete absence in Ocos and Cuadros sites of bones from animals which would have required some effort to secure, such as deer and peccary, testify to the sit-at-home propensities of these people."

---The Maya, Michael D. Coe [Frederick A. Praeger:New York] 1966 (p. 42-3)

[1250-1630]

"Many varieties of animals were hunted as game in the lowlands...Jaguars, wild pigs, and tapirs were dangerous and may have been hunted mainly by members of the elite. Gourd and cord traps, nets, and dogs were probably used by commoners to catch birds, iguanas, and other small animals; for the larger animlas the nobles probably used bows and arrows. Turkeys, partridges, pheasants, quail, pigeons, chachalacas, parrots, deer, ducks, coyotes, martins, foxes, badgers, squirrels, armadilloes, rabbits, eagles, macaws, coatis, iguanas, and pacas inhabited the lowland area and were probably hunted. The Indians also ate domesticated native dogs...Fish from the rivers and tributaries served as supplementary food and items of trade. Mojarras...and trout...were good fish but were available in only small quantities...During the late sixteenth century the Indians of Xeoj and Quoij also ate crabs and shrimp...Indians living on the lower coastal plain may have engaged in fishing and salt making in Pre-Hispanic times..."

---The Tzutujil Mayas: Continuity and Change, 1250-1630, Sandra Orellana [University of Oklahoma Press:Norman OK] 1984 (p. 11-12)

[16th Century]

"Maya agriculture...was the foundation of civilization. Maize, beans, squashes, chili peppers, cotton, and various kinds of fruit trees were cultivated...In Yucatan, the Maya stored their crops in above-ground cribs of wood, but also in fine underground places which might well be the chultuns so common in Classic sites. It is not certain that the lowlands Maya ate tortillas (flat cakes), but other ways of preparing maize are mentioned in the early sources. These include atole, a corn-meal gruel which was taken with chili pepper as the first meal of the day; posol, a mixture of water and sour-dough carried in gourds to the fields for sustenance during the day; and the well-known tamale. The peasant cuisine (we know little of that current among the elite class) was largely confined to such simple foods as to stews compounded from meat and vegetables, to which were added squash seeds and peppers. Cash crops' were of prime importance to Yucatan. ..The chocolate bean...provided the preferred drink of the Mesoamerican ruling classes, but well into Colonial times the beans served as a form of money in regional markets...Every May household had its own kitchen garden in which vegetables and fruit trees were raised, and fruit groves were scattered near settlements as well. Papaya, avocado, custard apple, sapodilla, and the breadnut tree were all cultivated, but many kinds of wild fruits were also eaten, especially in times of famine...Both wild and domestic turkeys were known...The larger mammals, such as deer and peccary, were hunted with the bow-and-arrow in drives (though in Classic times the atlatl-and-dart must have been the principal weapon), aided by packs of dogs. Birds like the wild turkey, partridge, wild pigeon, quail, and wild duck were take with pellets shot from blow guns. A variety of snares and deadfalls were shown in the Madrid Codex, especially a trap for armadillo. In Yucatan, fishing was generally of the offshore kind, by means of sweep and drag nets and hook-and-line, but fish were also shot with bow-and-arrow in lagoons. Inland, especially in the highland streams, stupefying drugs were pounded in the water, and the fish taken by hand once they had floated into artificial dams...Along the coasts the catch was salted and dried or roasted over a fire for use in commerce."

---The Maya, Coe (1966 edition) (p. 138-141)

PRIMARY ACCOUNT BY DIEGO DE LANDA, A SPANISH MISSIONARY

"Their principal diet is maize, from which they make various kinds of food and drink...The Indian women leave the maize to soak overnight in lime water so that in the morning it is soft and therefore partly prepared; in this fashion the husk and the stalk are separated from the grain. They grind it between stones, and while half ground, make large balls and loads of it to give to workmen, travelers, and sailors; and these balls last several months, only become sour [but do not go bad]. From the rest they take a lump and mix it in a bowl made from the shell of a fruit which grows on a tree and by means of which God provided them with vessels. They drink this substance and eat the rest, and it is tasty and very nutritious. From the most finely ground maize they extract a milk which they thicken over the fire to make into a kind of porridge, which they drink hot in the morning. They throw water on what is left over from the morning and drink it during the day because they are not accustomed to drink water on its own. They also toast and grind the maize and dilute it with a little pepper and cacao, which makes a most refreshing drink. From the ground maize and cacao they make a foaming drink with which they celebrate their feasts. They extract form cacao a grease which resembles butter, and from this and from the maize they make another drink which is both tasty and highly regarded...The make bread in a number of ways; and it is a good and healthy bread; but it is bad to eat cold so the Indian women go to pains to make it twice a day...They make stews of vegetables and the meat of deer and of wild and tame fowl, and also of sick; all of which may be found in large numbers. They also have good provisions, because they now breed the pigs and poultry of Castile. In the morning they drink the hot drink with peppers, which has been described, at the midday athe other cold ones, and at night the stews; and if there is no meat, they make their sauces out of pepper and vegetables. The men were not accustomed to eat with the women; they ate on the floor or, at most, off a mat for a table. They eat well when they have food but when they do not they do not they endure hunger very well and survive on very little. They wash their hands and mouths after eating."

---The Maya: Diego de Landa's Account of the Affairs of the Yucatan, translated and edited by A.R. Pagden [J. Philip O'Hara:Chicago IL] 1975 (p. 66-7)

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