Why Are Mexican Recipes and American Recipes So Different?

It should not be a surprise to anyone to hear that the neighboring countries of the United States and Mexico have different cuisines. Nor is it surprising to hear that Mexican food recipes and recipes for traditional American dishes are quite different. What is surprising is that they are different - quite often, countries which border each other have somewhat similar culinary traditions, such as is the case between the US and Canada. So why is it that our food is so different from Mexican food anyway?

History

There are two important reasons why Mexican food differs so greatly from the standard fare in the United States. One is historical. Unlike the United States, Mexico spent a much longer time as a Spanish colony than did the US. It is true that parts of the US were originally Spanish territories, though the Spanish colonial period lasted for a much briefer length of time here, with the influence of Spanish cuisine being pronounced mostly in regions, which were once Spanish territory, largely those bordering Mexico.

The US has a different history, being a former British colony with most of its early immigration coming from northern Europe and having different culinary traditions. This alone accounts for some of the divergence of Mexican and American cooking, since traditional Mexican recipes have a profound Spanish influence which is missing from most American cooking.

For a long time, however, immigrants to Mexico from the old world hailed, for the most part, from Spain, leaving an indelible stamp on the new nation's cuisine. Many Mexican recipes are adaptations of Spanish dishes, with some classic recipes from Spain surviving more or less intact. This led to a distinctive blend of culinary traditions drawn from Spanish and indigenous ingredients and cooking methods.

Mexico has also seen a large number of immigrants arrive from the Levant (especially Syria and Lebanon), adding a few dishes which are now classic Mexican food recipes in their own right such as al pastor. This dish is essentially a Mexican take on the middle eastern shawarma.

Since the US has a much more diverse population, no single nationality's cuisine ever assumed quite the dominance over American cooking as can be seen in Mexico with Spanish influence. The development of Mexican food is largely the product of two cuisines rather than many melding together over time.

Different Ingredients

The second reason for the difference between Mexican and American cooking has to do with geography. Just as the first European colonists in America learned to use the local produce as well as importing their own, early settlers in Mexico adapted to local ingredients and the native and Spanish cuisines melded into something all its own. Since the country has a warmer climate, different ingredients are easily available, with corn, chili peppers, pumpkins, and other crops, which have been cultivated there for millennia and imported crops, which grow easily in the country.

This fusion of ingredients native to Mexico and those brought from Spain and the cooking methods of both old world and new is what brought Mexican food to fruition. In fact, this is probably the most popular fusion cuisine in the world, though people rarely think of Mexican food as anything but its own distinctive cuisine, which of course it is as well. From Mexican food recipes like huaraches to menudo, mole to Mexican casserole recipes, Mexican food is something with a flavor which is uniquely its own.

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