CubaMex – Albuquerque, New Mexico
Because Columbus sailed the ocean blue in 1492 and a succession of Spanish explorers followed suit, you might expect that Spanish cuisine would have proliferated across the new world. Instead, Spanish discoveries included indigenous cooking techniques and ingredients that forever altered the way scions of Spain ate. At the time of conquest, the European diet was principally comprised of bread, olive oil, olives, “meat,” and wine. The “new world”–Mexico in particular–was rich, fecund, and replete with such crops such as beans, pumpkins, chilies, avocados, tomatoes, cocoa, cotton, tobacco, corn, and cassava, foods that could not be found in Mother Spain. All the territories explored and conquered by the Spaniards had their own bounty of unique and delicious culinary offerings. Because traditional Spanish foods were an ocean away, it made sense the Spaniards would adopt indigenous foodstuff. Many of those foods were ultimately introduced to the European continent. It was the advent of eating not just for survival, but for pleasure. To some extent, the vast variety of new ingredients and techniques were also shared among conquered lands. Solely from the perspective of culinary diversity and deliciousness, it was a win-win. The uniqueness of foods among such Spanish-held territories…
