Food

Maize was a main food source for the Aztecs. Maize, which is a type of corn, is a plant that can grow almost anywhere in their valley, except for their mountains. With maize you could make xoars, atole (porridge), tamales; you could add meat or vegetables inside of the tamales, and many other foods. Tortillas are also made from maize and are very important to learn how to make. To make a tortilla they would soak the maize in a blend of alkali. Then they would grind the maize and shape it by hand, and once they were done that they would cook it on comalli, which is like a frying pan. For their meats they would use turkeys, dogs, ducks, deer, and rabbits. They would also eat chillies, tomatoes, limes, cashews, potatoes, sweet potatoes, and peanuts. The Aztecs fished and would catch fish and shrimp. They would even eat worms, grasshoppers, iguanas, and use algae! This algae was very high in protein! Cocoa beans were used to make a chocolaty drink. They would add peppers, spices and corn meal to sweeten or spice it up a bit. Vanilla was a very popular flavour to add to their chocolate drink. Aztecs believed the god Quetzalcoatl brought the cocoa beans to them. For breakfast they usually ate atole, the porridge, around 10. During the hottest part of the day (mid afternoon) they would eat tamales or tortillas and beans when they couldn’t do anything else. Aztecs only ate two meals a day. If they wanted to they usually had a night time snack.