Foods Brought from New Spain (Mexico)
When the Spanish came to Mexico and Central America about five hundred years ago they met with indigenous people who ate foods made from plants that grew there. They had never seen tortillas and tamales until the native people of Mexico showed them. By the time the Spanish came to California, they had been eating these Central American foods for almost 300 years, since around 1492. They introduced all these Central American crops to California for the first time. Corn, beans and squash. Peppers, tomatoes and prickly pears.
Audio: 13 – Food supplies during Mexico's independence struggle, 1819
Audio: 13 – Food supplies during Mexico's independence struggle, 1819
