The Significance Mexican Food has on Mexican Religion

Introduction

Every culture of every country or nation is comprised of unique characteristics which have a more or less impact on one another. The pre-dominant culture is the Western Culture which is impacting the whole world. It comprises of their faiths, their principles, their lifestyle, their dress codes, their food, their beliefs and everything else which is unique to them and separates them from another country. Similarly, the next door neighbor to America, Mexico also has a rich and unique cultural heritage. It has its own traditions and values yet majority of them have been borrowed from its giant neighbor.

This paper shall deal with the effect the Mexican food has on its country's religion. The major religion of Mexico is Christian Catholicism and that its cuisine does have a major impact on it. For every season or occasion, there is a 'special' food or dish that is associated with it (ShortCuts, 2011, Pp. 200). They are mostly either derived from the primary food preference of the early Mexicans or the Aztecs, which were the Mexicans' ancestors.

In the whole of the Mexican culture one can observe the effect food and religion. As their predominant religion of the country is Christianity Catholicism, the minorities also interlink for the shaping of the modern society. It can be said even though one country or a person may not approve of the beliefs or religion of another, still religion is the biggest unifying factor of all of humanity.

Discussion

At the time when the Europeans first came to the country of Mexico in the year 1517, the native of the country were inclusive of the Aztecs in its interiors' central, the Yucatan Peninsula have the Mayas and the south was home to the Zapotec (Meier & Margo, 2003, Pp. 100-105). These people usually ate meals comprising of beans, corns, tomatoes, peppers, herbs, squash and sweet potatoes. There was a special item which was native to the Mexican location, Chocolate.

Amidst these people, the Indians on an occasional basis went hunting, thereby contributing deer, rabbit, wild turkeys and quails to their dietary regime.

Then afterwards when the Spaniards came to the Mexican land, they brought with themselves the first livestock, which included pigs, sheep, goats, cattle and chickens. It was soon followed by more Spaniards introducing flora from the Asian continent like wheat and sugarcane. The Spanish dominated the Mexican for more than three centuries because of which when they finally left the country, they still left their influences in the Mexican culture and people, which includes their cuisine.

Modern Mexican Foods

The basic component of the Mexican cuisine is and has been corn for more than a thousand years. Corn is observed to be present in virtually each and every Mexican meal, commonly seen as the flatbread which is a tortilla's form. It is also boiled after which it produces 'pozole', the corn stew. The choice vegetables and fruits include tomatillos (green tomatoes), tomatoes, sweet potato, squash, mango, nopales (prickly pear cactus), avocado, ...