Mexico

III: MEXICAN CULTURE

Mexico's Rich Culinary Culture

Introduction:
Food provides a window into many important aspects of culture. Mexico has a rich culinary history. Corn and chocolate, along with other familiar foods, have connections to the indigenous peoples of Mexico, and have played important roles in the diets of Mexicans and in sacred rituals in Mexico. Although they don't have the same sacred connections, chile peppers, also grown in Mexico and Latin America, have an interesting history.

Chocolate
The Field Museum of Chicago's All about Chocolate Web site.

The Sweet Lure of Chocolate contains the history of chocolate in the Amazon, Mexico, and Europe, as well as a video tour of a chocolate factory and a discussion of chocolate and health. This site created by the Exploratorium.

Chocolate Corner Timeline of Chocolate History. A short timeline of the history of chocolate.

Corn Resources
Kid's Gardening. There are many Web sites devoted to encouraging students and schools to raise gardens, and corn or chile peppers could be grown in a school garden.

Crayola's Web site includes a lesson on making corn husk dolls.

Chile Peppers
The Chile Pepper Institute's site is very informative about all aspects of chiles.

Brief history of the chile pepper.

Explanation of the Scoville scale and its invention.