Aztec cuisine - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

The most important staple of Aztec cuisine was maize

Maize

Maize known in many English-speaking countries as corn or mielie/mealie, is a grain domesticated by indigenous peoples in Mesoamerica in prehistoric times. The leafy stalk produces ears which contain seeds called kernels. Though technically a grain, maize kernels are used in cooking as a vegetable...

(corn), a crop that was so important to Aztec society that it played a central part in their mythology

Aztec religion

Aztec religion is the Mesoamerican religion practiced by the Aztec empire. Like other Mesoamerican religions, it had elements of human sacrifice in connection with a large number of religious festivals which were held according to patterns of the Aztec calendar...

. Just like wheat

Wheat

Wheat is a cereal grain, originally from the Levant region of the Near East, but now cultivated worldwide. In 2007 world production of wheat was 607 million tons, making it the third most-produced cereal after maize and rice...

in Europe or rice

Rice

Rice is the seed of the monocot plants Oryza sativa or Oryza glaberrima . As a cereal grain, it is the most important staple food for a large part of the world's human population, especially in East Asia, Southeast Asia, South Asia, the Middle East, and the West Indies...

in most of East Asia

East Asia

East Asia or Eastern Asia is a subregion of Asia that can be defined in either geographical or cultural terms...

, it was the food without which a meal was not a meal. It came in an inestimable number of varieties varying in color, texture, size and prestige and was eaten as tortilla

Tortilla

In Mexico and Central America, a tortilla is a type of thin, unleavened flat bread, made from finely ground maize...

s, tamales or atolli, maize gruel. The other constants of Aztec food were salt

Salt

In chemistry, salts are ionic compounds that result from the neutralization reaction of an acid and a base. They are composed of cations and anions so that the product is electrically neutral...

and chili peppers and the basic definition of Aztec fasting

Fasting

Fasting is primarily the act of willingly abstaining from some or all food, drink, or both, for a period of time. An absolute fast is normally defined as abstinence from all food and liquid for a defined period, usually a single day , or several days. Other fasts may be only partially restrictive,...

was to abstain from these two flavorers. The other major foods were beans

Common bean

Phaseolus vulgaris, the common bean, is an herbaceous annual plant domesticated independently in ancient Mesoamerica and the Andes, and now grown worldwide for its edible bean, popular both dry and as a green bean. The leaf is occasionally used as a leaf vegetable, and the straw is used for fodder...

and New World varieties of the grains amaranth

Amaranth

Amaranthus, collectively known as amaranth, is a cosmopolitan genus of herbs. Approximately 60 species are recognized, with inflorescences and foliage ranging from purple and red to gold...

(or pigweed), and chia. The combination of maize and these basic foods would have provided the average Aztec with a very well-rounded diet without any significant deficiencies in vitamins or minerals. The processing of maize called nixtamalization

Nixtamalization

Nixtamalization typically refers to a process for the preparation of maize , or other grain, in which the grain is soaked and cooked in an alkaline solution, usually limewater, and hulled. The term can also refer to the removal via an alkali process of the pericarp from other grains such as sorghum...

, the cooking of maize grains in alkaline solutions, also drastically increased the nutritional value of the common staple.

Water, maize gruels and pulque

Pulque

Pulque, or octli, is a milk-colored, somewhat viscous alcoholic beverage made from the fermented sap of the maguey plant, and is a traditional native beverage of Mexico. The drink’s history extends far back into the Mesoamerican period, when it was considered sacred, and its use was limited to...

, the fermented juice of the century plant

Century plant

Agave americana, commonly known as the century plant, maguey, or American aloe , is an agave originally from Mexico but cultivated worldwide as an ornamental plant...

, were the most common drinks, and there were many different fermented alcoholic beverages made from honey, cacti

Cacti

-See also:* RRDtool The underlying software upon which Cacti is built* MRTG The original Multi Router Traffic Grapher from which RRDtool was "extracted".* Munin -External links:******...

and various fruits. The elite took pride in not drinking pulque, a drink of commoners, and preferred drinks made from cacao. It was one of the most prestigious luxuries available; it was the drink of rulers, warriors and nobles and was flavored with chili peppers, honey and a seemingly endless list of spices and herbs.

The Aztec diet included an impressive variety of animals; turkey

Turkey (bird)

A turkey is a large bird in the genus Meleagris. One species, Meleagris gallopavo, commonly known as the Wild Turkey, is native to the forests of North America. The domestic turkey is a descendant of this species...

s and various fowl, pocket gopher

Pocket gopher

The pocket gophers are burrowing rodents of the family Geomyidae. These are the "true" gophers, though several ground squirrels of the family Sciuridae are often called gophers as well...

s, Green iguana

Green Iguana

The Green Iguana or Common Iguana is a large, arboreal herbivorous species of lizard of the genus Iguana native to Central and South America...

s, axolotl

Axolotl

The axolotl , Ambystoma mexicanum, is a neotenic salamander, closely related to the Tiger Salamander. Larvae of this species fail to undergo metamorphosis, so the adults remain aquatic and gilled. It is also called ajolote...

s (a type of water salamander), shrimp

Shrimp

Shrimp are swimming, decapod crustaceans classified in the infraorder Caridea, found widely around the world in both fresh and salt water. Adult shrimp are filter feeding benthic animals living close to the bottom. They can live in schools and can swim rapidly backwards. Shrimp are an important...

, fish

Fish

Fish are a paraphyletic group of organisms that consist of all gill-bearing aquatic vertebrate animals that lack limbs with digits. Included in this definition are the living hagfish, lampreys, and cartilaginous and bony fish, as well as various extinct related groups...

and a great variety of insects, larvae and insect eggs. They ate various mushrooms and fungi, including the parasitic corn smut

Corn smut

Corn smut is a pathogenic plant fungus that causes smut disease on maize and teosinte...

, which grows on ears of corn. Squash was very popular and came in many different varieties. Squash seed, fresh, dried or roasted, were especially popular. Tomato

Tomato

The word "tomato" may refer to the plant or the edible, typically red, fruit which it bears. Originating in South America, the tomato was spread around the world following the Spanish colonization of the Americas, and its many varieties are now widely grown, often in greenhouses in cooler...

es, though different from the varieties common today, was often mixed with chili in sauces or as filling for tamales.

Meals

Most sources describe two meals per day, though there is an account of laborers getting three meals, one at dawn, another one at around 9 in the morning and one at around 3 in the afternoon. This is similar to the custom in contemporary Europe, but it is unclear if intake of atolli
Atole
Atole is a traditional masa-based Mexican and Central American hot drink. Chocolate atole is known as champurrado or atole...

, maize gruel

Gruel

Gruel is a food preparation consisting of some type of cereal—oat, wheat or rye flour, or rice—boiled in water or milk. It is a thinner version of porridge that may be more often drunk than eaten and need not even be cooked...

, was considered a meal or not. Drinking a good amount of the thicker kinds of atolli could equal the calories in several tortillas, and atolli was consumed on a daily basis by most of the population.

Feasts

Many accounts exist of Aztec feasts and banquets and the ceremony that surrounded them. Before a meal, servants presented fragrant tobacco tubes and sometimes also flowers with which the guests could rub their head, hands and neck. Before the meal would start each guest would drop a little food on the ground as an offering to the god Tlaltecuhtli

Tlaltecuhtli

Tlaltecuhtli, Tlaltecutli is a pre-Columbian Mesoamerican deity figure, identified from sculpture and iconography dating to the Late Postclassic period of Mesoamerican chronology , primarily among the Mexica and other Nahuatl-speaking cultures...

. As military prowess was highly praised among the Aztecs, table manners imitated the movement of warriors. The smoking tubes and flowers went from the left hand of the servant to the right hand of the guest and the plate accompanying the smoking tube went from the right hand to the left hand. This was an imitation of how a warrior received his atlatl

Atlatl

An atlatl or spear-thrower is a tool that uses leverage to achieve greater velocity in dart-throwing.It consists of a shaft with a cup or a spur at the end that supports and propels the butt of the dart. The atlatl is held in one hand, gripped near the end farthest from the cup...

darts and shield. The flowers passed out bore different names depending on how they were handed out; "sword flowers" went from left hand to right and "shield flowers" went from right hand to left. When eating, guests would hold their individual bowls filled with dipping sauce in the center of the right hand and then dip tortillas or tamales (which were served from baskets) with the left. The meal was concluded by serving chocolate, often served in a calabash

Calabash

Lagenaria siceraria , bottle gourd, opo squash or long melon is a vine grown for its fruit, which can either be harvested young and used as a vegetable, or harvested mature, dried, and used as a bottle, utensil, or pipe. For this reason, the calabash is widely known as the bottle gourd...

cup along with a stirring stick.

Men and women were separated at banquets and, though it is not entirely clear from the sources, it seems as if only men drank chocolate. The women would more likely have drunk posolli (maize gruel from finely ground maize) or some type of pulque. Rich hosts could often received guests sitting in rooms around an open courtyard similar to Middle Eastern caravanserai

Caravanserai

A caravanserai, or khan, also known as caravansary, caravansera, or caravansara in English was a roadside inn where travelers could rest and recover from the day's journey...

(or han in Turkish) and senior military men would perform dances. Festivities would begin at midnight and some would drink chocolate and eat hallucinogenic mushrooms so that they could tell about their experiences and visions to the other guests. Right before dawn, singing commenced and offerings were burned and buried in the courtyard to ensure the fortune of the children of the hosts. At dawn the remaining flowers, smoking tubes and food were given to the old and poor that had been invited, or to the servants. As with all other aspects of life, the Aztecs stressed the dual nature of all things, and toward the end of the banquet the host would be sternly reminded by his elders of his own mortality and that he should not be overcome with pride.

Food preparation

The main method of preparation was boiling or steaming in two-handled clay pots or jars called xoctli in Nahuatl and translated into Spanish as olla ("pot"). The olla was filled with food and heated over a fire. It could also be used to steam food by pouring a little water into the olla and then placing tamales wrapped in maize husks on a light structure of twigs in the middle of the pot. There are several references to frying in the accounts of Spanish chroniclers, but the only specification of the Aztec type of frying appears to be some kind of cooking that was done with syrup, not cooking fat. This is corroborated by the fact that no evidence for large-scale extraction of vegetable oils exist and that no cooking vessels suited for frying have been found by archeologists.

Tortillas, tamales, casseroles and the sauces that went with them were the most common dishes. Chili and salt were both ubiquitous and the most basic meal was usually just tortillas that were dipped in chilis that had been ground in a mortar with a little water. Dough could be used to encase meat, sometimes even whole turkeys, before cooking. In major Aztec towns and cities there were vendors that sold street food of all kinds, catering to both the rich and poor. Other than ingredients and prepared food every imaginable type of atolli could be bought, either to quench one's thirst or as an instant meal in liquid form.

Foods

The Aztec staple foods included maize

Maize

, beans and squash to which were often added chilis and tomatoes, all prominent parts of the Mexican diet to this day. They harvested acocil

Acocil

Acocil is a species of crayfish native to Mexico, Cambarellus montezumae. The name acocil comes from the Nahuatl , meaning "crooked one of the water" or "squirms in the water". It is a traditional foodstuff of the Pre-Columbian Mexicans, who boiled or baked the animal, and ate it in tacos...

s, a small and abundant shrimp of Lake Texcoco, as well as Spirulina algae, which was made into a sort of cake rich in flavonoid

Flavonoid

Flavonoids , are a class of plant secondary metabolites....

s. Although the Aztecs' diet was mostly vegetarian, the Aztecs consumed insects such as cricket

Cricket (insect)

Crickets, family Gryllidae , are insects somewhat related to grasshoppers, and more closely related to katydids or bush crickets . They have somewhat flattened bodies and long antennae. There are about 900 species of crickets...

s (chapulines), maguey worm

Maguey worm

A maguey worm is one of two varieties of edible caterpillars that infest maguey and Agave tequilana plants. The white maguey worms, known as meocuiles, are caterpillars of a butterfly commonly named "tequila giant skipper," Aegiale hesperiaris...

, ants, larvae, etc. Insects have a higher protein content than meat, and even now they are considered a delicacy in some parts of Mexico.

Cereals

Maize

was the single most important staple of the Aztecs. It was consumed at every meal by all social classes, and played a central role in Aztec mythology. To some of the first Europeans, the Aztecs described maize as "precious, our flesh, our bones". It came in a vast number of varieties of various sizes, shapes and colors; yellow, reddish, white with stripes of color, black, with or without speckles and a blue-husked variant that was considered to be particularly precious. Countless other local and regional varieties must have also existed, but few were recorded. Maize was revered to such an extent that women blew on maize before putting it into the cooking pot so that it would not fear the fire, and any maize that was dropped on the ground was picked up rather than being wasted. One of the Aztec informants of the Spanish Franciscan missionary and chronicler Bernardino de Sahagún

Bernardino de Sahagún

Bernardino de Sahagún was a Franciscan friar, missionary priest and pioneering ethnographer who participated in the Catholic evangelization of colonial New Spain . Born in Sahagún, Spain, in 1499, he journeyed to New Spain in 1529, and spent more than 50 years conducting interviews regarding Aztec...

explained the practice in the following way:
A process called nixtamalization

Nixtamalization

was used all over America where maize was the staple. The word is a compound of the Nahuatl

Nahuatl

Nahuatl is thought to mean "a good, clear sound" This language name has several spellings, among them náhuatl , Naoatl, Nauatl, Nahuatl, Nawatl. In a back formation from the name of the language, the ethnic group of Nahuatl speakers are called Nahua...

words nextli ("ashes") and tamalli ("unformed corn dough; tamal"), and the process is still in use today. Dry maize grain is soaked and cooked in an alkaline solution, usually limewater. This releases the pericarp, the outer hull of the grains and makes the maize easier to grind. The process transforms maize from a simple source of carbohydrate

Carbohydrate

A carbohydrate is an organic compound with the empirical formula ; that is, consists only of carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen, with a hydrogen:oxygen atom ratio of 2:1 . However, there are exceptions to this. One common example would be deoxyribose, a component of DNA, which has the empirical...

s into a considerably more complete nutritional package; it increases the amount of calcium

Calcium

Calcium is the chemical element with the symbol Ca and atomic number 20. It has an atomic mass of 40.078 amu. Calcium is a soft gray alkaline earth metal, and is the fifth-most-abundant element by mass in the Earth's crust...

, iron

Iron

Iron is a chemical element with the symbol Fe and atomic number 26. It is a metal in the first transition series. It is the most common element forming the planet Earth as a whole, forming much of Earth's outer and inner core. It is the fourth most common element in the Earth's crust...

, copper

Copper

Copper is a chemical element with the symbol Cu and atomic number 29. It is a ductile metal with very high thermal and electrical conductivity. Pure copper is soft and malleable; an exposed surface has a reddish-orange tarnish...

, zinc

Zinc

Zinc , or spelter , is a metallic chemical element; it has the symbol Zn and atomic number 30. It is the first element in group 12 of the periodic table. Zinc is, in some respects, chemically similar to magnesium, because its ion is of similar size and its only common oxidation state is +2...

that are added through the alkalide or the vessel used in the process and niacin

Niacin

"Niacin" redirects here. For the neo-fusion band, see Niacin .Niacin is an organic compound with the formula and, depending on the definition used, one of the forty to eighty essential human nutrients.Niacin is one of five vitamins associated with a pandemic deficiency disease: niacin deficiency...

, riboflavin

Riboflavin

Riboflavin, also known as vitamin B2 or additive E101, is an easily absorbed micronutrient with a key role in maintaining health in humans and animals. It is the central component of the cofactors FAD and FMN, and is therefore required by all flavoproteins. As such, vitamin B2 is required for a...

and more protein

Protein

Proteins are biochemical compounds consisting of one or more polypeptides typically folded into a globular or fibrous form, facilitating a biological function. A polypeptide is a single linear polymer chain of amino acids bonded together by peptide bonds between the carboxyl and amino groups of...

already present in the corn that is not digestible to humans are made available through the process. The inhibited growth of certain mycotoxins (toxic fungi) is another benefit of nixtamalization. If the processed maize, the nixtamal, is allowed to ferment, further nutrients, including amino acid

Amino acid

Amino acids are molecules containing an amine group, a carboxylic acid group and a side-chain that varies between different amino acids. The key elements of an amino acid are carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, and nitrogen...

s such as lysine

Lysine

Lysine is an α-amino acid with the chemical formula HO2CCH4NH2. It is an essential amino acid, which means that the human body cannot synthesize it. Its codons are AAA and AAG....

and tryptophan

Tryptophan

Tryptophan is one of the 20 standard amino acids, as well as an essential amino acid in the human diet. It is encoded in the standard genetic code as the codon UGG...

are made available. Together with beans, vegetables, fruit, chilis and salt nixtamalized corn can form a complete and nutritionally satisfactory diet with no need for animal protein.

Spices

A great number of herbs and spices were available to the Aztecs in seasoning food. Among the most important, chili peppers come in a wide variety of species and cultivars, some domesticated and many of them wild. These included a great range of heat intensity depending on the amount of capsaicin present, with some being mild and others being very piquant. The chilis were often dried and ground for storage and use in cooking, some roasted beforehand to impart different tastes. Flavors varied significantly from one type to another, including sweet, fruity, earthy, smokey, and fiery hot.

Native species of plants used as seasonings produced flavors similar to Old World spices that often proved to be more easily accessible in cooking after the Spanish conquest. Culantro or Mexican coriander provides a much stronger flavor than its Old World parallel, cilantro, and its leaves can be easier to dry. Mexican oregano and Mexican anise likewise produce flavors reminiscent of their Mediterranean counterparts, while allspice

Allspice

Allspice, also called Jamaica pepper, pepper, myrtle pepper, pimenta, or newspice, is a spice that is the dried unripe fruit of Pimenta dioica , a mid-canopy tree native to the Greater Antilles, southern Mexico, and Central America, now cultivated in many warm parts of the world...

has an aroma somewhere in between nutmeg, cloves, and cinnamon. The bark of canella

Canella

Canella is a monospecific genus containing the species Canella winterana, a tree native to the Caribbean from the Florida Keys to Barbados...

or white cinnamon has a soft, delicate flavor that might have eased the acceptance of the more pungent cinnamon of Ceylon into modern Mexican cuisine. Before the arrival of onions and garlic, subtler but similar wild plants such as Kunth's onion and other southern-ranging species of the genus Allium

Allium

Allium is a monocot genus of flowering plants, informally referred to as the onion genus. The generic name Allium is the Latin word for garlic....

, as well as the fragrant leaves of garlic vine may have been appropriated. Other flavorings available included mesquite

Mesquite

Mesquite is a leguminous plant of the Prosopis genus found in northern Mexico through the Sonoran Desert and Chihuahuan Deserts, and up into the Southwestern United States as far north as southern Kansas, west to the Colorado Desert in California,and east to the eastern fifth of Texas, where...

, vanilla

Vanilla

Vanilla is a flavoring derived from orchids of the genus Vanilla, primarily from the Mexican species, Flat-leaved Vanilla . The word vanilla derives from the Spanish word "", little pod...

, achiote

Achiote

Achiote is a shrub or small tree from the tropical region of the Americas. The name derives from the Nahuatl word for the shrub, achiotl. It is also known as Aploppas, and its original Tupi name urucu. It is cultivated there and in Southeast Asia, where it was introduced by the Spanish in the...

, epazote

Epazote

Epazote, wormseed, Jesuit's tea, Mexican tea, Paico or Herba Sancti Mariæ is an herb native to Central America, South America, and southern Mexico....

, hoja santa

Hoja santa

Hoja santa is an aromatic herb with a heart-shaped, velvety leaf which grows in tropic Mesoamerica. The name hoja santa means "sacred leaf" in Spanish...

, popcorn flower, avocado

Avocado

The avocado is a tree native to Central Mexico, classified in the flowering plant family Lauraceae along with cinnamon, camphor and bay laurel...

leaf, and a large array of other indigenous plants.

Drink

Many different alcoholic beverages were made from fermented maize, honey, pineapple, cactus fruit and other plants. The most common was octli which was made from maguey

Century plant

Agave americana, commonly known as the century plant, maguey, or American aloe , is an agave originally from Mexico but cultivated worldwide as an ornamental plant...

sap. It is today known as pulque

Pulque

, an Antillean

Antilles

The Antilles islands form the greater part of the West Indies in the Caribbean Sea. The Antilles are divided into two major groups: the "Greater Antilles" to the north and west, including the larger islands of Cuba, Jamaica, Hispaniola , and Puerto Rico; and the smaller "Lesser Antilles" on the...

term. It was drunk by all social classes, though some nobles made a point of not downing such a humble beverage. Drinking was tolerated, even for children at some occasions, but getting drunk was not. The penalties could be very stiff, and were stricter for the elite. The first transgression of a commoner would be punished by tearing his house down and sending him off to live in the field like an animal. A noble would generally not get a second chance and could be executed for overindulging in alcohol. Getting drunk appeared to have been more tolerated for elderly people, though the sources diverge as to the exact age. This did not prevent the occasional tragedy of nobles who became alcoholics and drank themselves into poverty, squalor and an early death. An informant of Sahagún told the sad story of a former tlacateccatl

Tlacateccatl

In the Aztec military, tlacateccatl was a title roughly equivalent to general. The tlacateccatl was in charge of the tlacatecco, a military quarter in the center of the Aztec capital, Tenochtitlan. In wartime he was second-in-command to the tlatoani and the tlacochcalcatl...

, a general and commander of over 8,000 troops:

Atolli

Atolli, maize gruel, accounted for a considerable amount of the daily calorie intake. The basic recipe for atolli was eight parts water and six parts maize with lime that was cooked until it softened and then ground. The mixture was then boiled until it thickened. There were many variations of atolli: a mixture of 1/10 maguey syrup made nequatolli; adding chili ground with salt and tomato would make iztac atolli; letting maize dough sour for 4–5 days and then adding more fresh dough with chili and salt would make xocoatolli. Beans, baked tortillas with the crust cut off, toasted maize, chia, amaranth and honey could also be added and there was pinolli, ground toasted maize that was carried by travelers in sacks which could be mixed with water on the road for an instant meal.

Cacao

Cacao had immense symbolic value. It was a rare luxury and an import that could not be grown within the boundaries of the Aztec Empire. There are no detailed descriptions of how cacao solids were prepared, but there are a number of allusions to the fact that it was eaten in some form. Cacao beans were among the most valuable commodities and could be used as a form of payment, although of somewhat low value; 80-100 beans could be used to buy a small mantle or a canoe-full of fresh water if one lived on the salty part of the lakes around Tenochtitlan. Nevertheless beans were frequently counterfeited by filling empty cacao shells with dirt or mud.

Cacao was most commonly drunk as xocolatl ("bitter water", the origin of the word chocolate

Chocolate

Chocolate is a raw or processed food produced from the seed of the tropical Theobroma cacao tree. Cacao has been cultivated for at least three millennia in Mexico, Central and South America. Its earliest documented use is around 1100 BC...

) and was the beverage of warriors and nobles. It was considered a potent intoxicant and something that was drunk with great solemnity and gravity which was described as something "not drunk unthinkingly" by the Spanish chronicler Sahagún. Chocolate could be prepared in a huge variety of ways and most of them involved mixing hot or tepid water with toasted and ground cacao beans, maize and any number of flavorers such as chili, honey, vanilla and a wide variety of spices. The ingredients were mixed and beaten with a beating stick or aerated by pouring the chocolate from one vessel to another. If the cacao was of high quality, this produced a rich head of foam. The head could be set aside, the drink further aerated to produce another head, which was also set aside and then placed on top of the drink along with the rest of the foam before serving.

Dietary norms

The Aztecs stressed moderation in all aspects of life. European authors and chroniclers were often impressed by what they perceived as exemplary frugality, simplicity and moderation. Juan de Palafox y Mendoza

Juan de Palafox y Mendoza

Blessed Juan de Palafox y Mendoza was a Spanish archbishop in the Roman Catholic Church. He also held political office in the New World. From June 10, 1642 to November 23, 1642 he was viceroy of New Spain.-Early life:...

, the bishop of Puebla

Puebla

Puebla officially Estado Libre y Soberano de Puebla is one of the 31 states which, with the Federal District, comprise the 32 Federal Entities of Mexico. It is divided in 217 municipalities and its capital city is Puebla....

and viceroy of New Spain

New Spain

New Spain, formally called the Viceroyalty of New Spain , was a viceroyalty of the Spanish colonial empire, comprising primarily territories in what was known then as 'América Septentrional' or North America. Its capital was Mexico City, formerly Tenochtitlan, capital of the Aztec Empire...

in the 1640s reported:

Fasting

The primary meaning of an Aztec fast was to abstain from salt and chilis and all members of Aztec society engaged in fasting to some extent. There were no regular exceptions from the fast, something that shocked the first Europeans who came into contact with the Aztecs. Though fasting was common in Europe, there were permanent exceptions for the women and small children, the sick or frail and the elderly. Before the New Fire ceremony, which occurred every 52 years, some priests fasted for a whole year; the other priests 80 days and lords 8 days. Commoners engaged in fasts, but less rigorously. There was also a permanent contingent of fasters in Tehuacan

Tehuacán

Tehuacán is the second largest city in the Mexican state of Puebla, nestled in the Southeast Valley of Tehuacán, bordering the states of Oaxaca and Veracruz. The 2010 census reported a population of 248,716 in the city and 274,906 in its surrounding municipality of the same name, of which it serves...

. Along with various ascetic rigors like sleeping on a stone pillow, they fasted for periods of four years on just one 50-gram tortilla (about 2 ounces) per day. The only respite came every 20 days, when they were allowed to eat whatever they wanted.

Even rulers such as Moctezuma were expected to cut down on their otherwise luxurious lifestyle and did so with considerable conviction and effort. At times he abstained from luxuries and sex with women and ate only cakes of michihuauhtli and seeds of amaranth

Amaranth

Amaranthus, collectively known as amaranth, is a cosmopolitan genus of herbs. Approximately 60 species are recognized, with inflorescences and foliage ranging from purple and red to gold...

or goosefoot

Chenopodium

Chenopodium is a genus of about 150 species of perennial or annual herbaceous flowering plants known as the goosefoots, which occur almost anywhere in the world. It is placed in the family Amaranthaceae in the APG II system; older classifications separate it and its relatives as Chenopodiaceae, but...

. The lord's chocolate was also replaced with water mixed from parched bean powder. This can be contrasted with the fasts of many European nobles and clergy that, while obeying the letter of the religious regulation by replacing meat and animal products with fish, were still luxurious feasts in their own right.

Cannibalism

The Aztecs practiced ritualistic cannibalism

Cannibalism

Cannibalism is the act or practice of humans eating the flesh of other human beings. It is also called anthropophagy...

. Victims, usually prisoners of war, were sacrificed in public on top of temples and pyramids by cutting out their hearts. The bodies were then thrown down to the ground where they were dismembered. The pieces were then distributed to the elite, which were mostly warriors and priests. The meat was consumed in the form of stews flavored only with salt and eaten with maize tortillas, but without the otherwise ubiquitous chili. In the late 1970s the anthropologist Michael Harner

Michael Harner

Michael Harner is the founder of the and the formulator of "core shamanism." Harner is known for bringing shamanism and shamanic healing to the contemporary Western world...

suggested that the Aztecs had resorted to large-scale, organized cannibalism to make up for an assumed protein

Protein

deficiency in the diet. This idea gained limited support from some scholars, but has been shown to be based on unfounded assumptions about eating habits, agriculture and demographics, making it a highly unlikely scenario.