How Did Rice Come To Be Such An Important Ingredient In Mexican Cooking

Rice is the most commonly eaten cereal crop in the world, being the mainstay of the diet in much of east and southeast Asia, the Caribbean and central and South America. Of course, rice is eaten in literally every part of the world, including North America. Rice is grown in the United States and more apropos to this article, Mexico. After corn, rice is the most important grain in Mexican cuisine and there are too many different Mexican rice recipes to list in the space we have here.

Even though it may seem like rice has always been there, it is one of the more recent ingredients used in Mexican cuisine, having arrived in the new world with Spanish and Portuguese colonists, along with beef, cheese and old world spices like cumin - all of which are now part and parcel of the country’s culinary heritage. Many of Mexico’s traditional rice recipes date back to shortly after the first rice crops were grown in the country.

Classic Mexican Rice Recipes

One of the best known and most popular of all Mexican rice dishes is arroz con pollo, which is also among the most popular Mexican chicken recipes. The name means “rice with chicken” and is the Mexican version of a classic comfort food combination.

This dish is a Mexican adaptation of a Spanish recipe, with some ingredients, which are native to the Americas. Tomatoes are a common ingredient in arroz con pollo, as is oregano - and in Mexico, cooks prefer to use the stronger-flavored Mexican oregano instead of Greek oregano as cooks would use in Europe. While the Spanish influence is undeniable, these small changes have made this very much a Mexican rice recipe.

Spanish Cuisine Adapts To The New World

Once rice was introduced to the Americas, cooks began adapting Spanish recipes to the ingredients, which were locally available. Before long, many of these dishes became traditional Mexican rice recipes. For instance, paella. We usually think of this dish as being the epitome of Spanish cooking, but it is a certainty that in Mexico, cooks were making rice and seafood meals which predated its arrival in Valencia.

Not only is the tomato often featured in Spanish paella from the Americas, but also bell peppers, another new world crop are also often used. Here you have an example of the cuisines of Spain and Mexico having a sort of conversation with each other across the Atlantic Ocean, with European cooks finding the new vegetables and fruits from the Americas valuable additions to their own recipes and the people of Mexico making the ingredients and recipes of Europe their own.

Lightly seasoned Mexican rice is another of the better-known Mexican rice recipes. This rice is served as a complement to a wide variety of Mexican dishes, particularly beans. This is a dish, which is quite similar to Spanish rice; and just as with paella, this rice actually contains some new world ingredients.

Rice has become almost as important of a dietary staple in Mexico as it is in much of the world. It may not have been in the Mexican culinary repertoire as long as corn or chilies, but it has found a happy place in this one of a kind cuisine and if you enjoy any of these wonderful Mexican rice recipes, you are certainly glad that it made its way over to the Americas.

Discover the truth about Mexican food history and find out more about the wonderful recipes that make MexicanFoodRecipes.org a favorite with the whole family.

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