Shawna Frazier
T. Rowe
Spanish 1120
5/2/2015
THE WHOLE ENCHILADA
Mexican food can be traced back to the time of the Aztecs. The Mayas were the first to invent the tortilla and the start of the enchilada. The start was simple, to create them they would wrap the tortilla around different meats, fish, beans, and chilies. This was called a chillapitzalli, this word came from combining the Aztec words, chili and flute. It wasn’t until Spain’s influence that they would also fry them and top them with salsa. They would stack the tortillas with layers of salsa and cheese, and to top this creation off they would place lettuce and a fried egg on top. Later Spain would change the word chillapitzalli into something easy for them to pronounce, enchilada. In the late 1800’s was when the word enchilada would first be seen in print. The word enchilada comes from the Spanish word enchilar, meaning to add chili to something.
In 1521 Spain invaded Mexico. The Spanish did not completely alter Mexican food, but what they did was bring new ingredients into the picture. They introduced new meat, such as chicken, pork and beef as well as new spices and dairy products. The introduction of cows not only gave them beef but it also gave them milk which thus gave them the cheese for their enchiladas. And now with chickens it gave them the egg that they put on top of the enchilada. And because of the introduction of pigs they were now able to fry with the fat from the pig. So they could now fry the tortillas and fry the egg for the enchiladas. Before the Spanish arrival they used mostly fish, beans, chilies, tomatoes, and wild game in there cooking. And they had no fat for frying, there only methods of cooking were boiling, baking and
Frazier. Pg 2 steaming. Although Spain brought many great things to Mexico, we can thank the Aztecs for their creation of chocolate! The Aztecs