Lots of people in the United States have heard of Cinco de Mayo. Some even look forward to celebrating it every year. Many, however, do not understand the history behind this Mexican holiday. If you ask the average American why Cinco de Mayo is celebrated, they will tell you it is Mexican Independence Day. They are wrong. That actually falls on September 16.

During the 1950s, the United States had a program called The Good Neighbor Policy that encouraged Americans to reach out to our neighboring countries. Cinco de Mayo was first introduced to Americans at this time. In the 1960s, Chicano activists made the holiday more visible as a method to inspire cultural pride among Mexican-Americans.

By the time the 1980s rolled around, the holiday had been slowly growing in notoriety. Throughout this decade’s commercialism, Cinco de Mayo had been advertised as an excellent holiday to devote to drinking alcoholic beverages from American companies. It is because of these companies that Cinco do Mayo had become mainstream in American culture, although the true meaning of it, to celebrate Mexico’s victory against the French in 1862, was diluted.

Becoming more of a mainstream holiday has exposed more Americans to the traditions of our Mexican neighbors. Their wonderful music, foods, and traditions have made their way into our lives. A large part of our society anticipates the Cinco de Mayo holiday each year.

Cinco de Mayo has become a wonderful reason to indulge ourselves with margaritas, nachos and all things Latino. You can get all dressed up in bright traditional clothing, grab some sombreros, throw a Mexican flag up on the wall, hang dried chilies around the house and just have fun. The schools teach about this holiday, so have your children share what they have learned and incorporate it all into your celebration.

Some people throw big parties on May 5th. It’s not a holiday reserved just for Mexicans anymore. All sorts of ethnic groups now jump on the bandwagon. Some groups even hold their own parades and festivals to add to the celebratory mood. In some places, the celebration has spread to immense proportions. New York, Port Huron, and Los Angeles are all home to huge Cinco de Mayo celebrations.

For those who prefer to celebrate closer to home, it is easy to make their own preparations for the celebration. They may cook Cinco de Mayo food, put up decorations, and listen to traditional mariachi music. Private parties are almost as popular now as the public parties held in restaurants, bars, and communities around the country.

Cinco de Mayo is a great reason to explore those Mexican recipes you have been curious about. Make some great food for your family to enjoy and share some Mexican culture. Invite your friends to come over and have them bring some snacks.

For those who like to go out, check out the local Mexican restaurants for menu specials and parties they may be planning. You can always go out for a great meal, margaritas, and dancing to celebrate Cinco de Mayo. If you prefer a quieter celebration, enjoy some home cooked tacos and pop Zorro into the DVD player. You do not have to do what everyone else does to celebrate.

Whether you prefer chicken, steak, fish or vegetarian food, fajitas make a great dinner because they come in all these varieties and you can even make fajitas with different fillings easily enough if your family do not all like the same thing. Fajitas make a nicely filling snack or dinner.

When Mexican food is brought up, most people think of beef, chicken, or pork, not seafood. If you think about it though, Mexico has six thousand miles of coastline. With all that oceanfront property, seafood has got to be a big part of their menu. Mexico is situated between the Pacific Ocean and the Atlantic Ocean. The Gulf of Mexico also provides a good fishing spot. The amount of seafood caught in Mexico every year is substantial.

Ceviche is a very popular seafood dish from Mexico. Made with small pieces of raw fish, squid, or shrimp, the recipe includes onion, peppers, salt, and cilantro. The fish is “cooked” with lemon or limejuice. The citric acid in the juice changes the proteins in the fish just like cooking. Even so, some ingredients will be cooked for safety purposes. You can enjoy ceviche on its own or used as filling for a taco. It is also wonderful on crackers or tostadas.

When fish or shrimp is served in the Veracruzana style, the seafood is simmered in a seasoned tomato sauce. The seasonings may include capers, olives, and chilies. The result is a tangy dish with some spice. It is often served with red snapper or shrimp. The area around Veracruz is well known for its many seafood dishes.

One Spanish method for cooking has really caught on in Mexico, especially for fish. This method is known as “a la Plancha.” In this cooking style, a metal plate is laid over an open flame. The fish is grilled upon the plate, giving the fish that wonderful grilled flavor while keeping it from sticking to the grill.

Winter is the best fishing time in Mexico. Large quantities of delicious fish and shellfish are harvested during this season to feed the populace. Most people in Mexico follow the Catholic religion, which dictates no meat on Fridays, only fish. They also eat a lot of seafood during Lent. Seafood plays a major part in their religious rituals for each family. Every cook uses their seasoning skills to bring out the most in their seafood, whether they can afford large shrimp or only a humble meal of fish heads.

When it comes to making food in your own kitchen, do not overlook the Mexican recipes for seafood. Fish is really a versatile ingredient. Many popular dishes in Mexico include spicy stuffed clams, red snapper and shrimp stuffed chilies. Let them tickle your taste buds without having to go on vacation.

Add some of these delicious Mexican recipes to your recipe file. Seafood soup, stews and other dishes are both delicious and filling. Shrimp is used in enchiladas, tacos, and many more favorite dishes. Seafood and rice is a common dish served in Veracruz that contains fish, shrimp, octopus, clams, and crabs. Seafood frittatas are made with octopus, shrimp, crab, fish, and shellfish such as oysters, mussels, or clams for an exciting way to enjoy eggs.

Do not skip Mexican recipes just because they are for seafood. Mexican cuisine really knows how to make seafood taste amazing. Explore Mexican culture through the use of seafood and see what you discover. It will give you a new perspective and respect for this diverse country. Seafood really provides the perfect foil for the many spices used in Mexican cuisine.

There is something very special about Mexican food and a lot of people would love to find some free traditional Mexican recipes to try making themselves at home for the whole family to enjoy. From enchiladas to tacos and guacamole to mole sauce, flavorful Mexican recipes never fail to delight the senses.

Mexican cuisine makes most of us think of assertive spices; mostly chilies and cumin. This combination of spices is one, which is a perfect representative of the country’s culinary history; an ingredient, which came from the old world with the Spanish and one, which has been a central part of Mexican food for thousands of years.

Chilies are the Mexican spices with the longest history, having been used by the Aztecs for many centuries before the arrival of Europeans. Like tomatoes and potatoes, peppers are new world natives and remain one of the most important ingredients in Mexican recipes just as they always have been.

Jalapenos are the most familiar of these peppers to people in the US. They are commonly used in salsas and pickled for use as a condiment as well as diced for use fresh. The Serrano pepper, a smaller, slightly hotter pepper is also seen relatively often in the US. Many Mexican food recipe are nearly unthinkable without these fiery vegetables. Other peppers such as pasillas and anchos are commonly dried and then ground; others are smoked, such as chipotle peppers (which are actually smoked jalapenos).

Some of the Mexican culinary herbs, which are native to the country, include epazote, culantro, and Mexican oregano, all of which are very important to various Mexican recipes. Used very often in Mexican and Caribbean cooking, culantro is largely unknown in the US and hard to find other than in Mexican groceries. Its flavor, however, is similar enough to cilantro that this herb may be substituted if you cannot find the real thing in your area.

Despite its name, Mexican oregano is not even a relative of the old world herb of the same name. While their flavors are similar enough that Greek oregano can be substituted if needed, this herb is actually related to lemon verbena, not oregano. Its flavor is slightly stronger than that of the oregano used in Greek and Italian cooking and can be found dried in Mexican groceries and specialty spice markets.

An herb, which is often used in bean dishes, especially those that include black beans, epazote is an herb, which has a flavor, which is not quite like anything else (though it is often compared to tarragon). If you cannot find epazote, however, simply omit it – there is no real acceptable substitute for this Mexican herb. You may be able to find it in your local Mexican grocery however, either in the produce section when it is in season or dried along with other spices.

While we often think of cumin when we think of Mexican food, this spice is one, which came across the Atlantic with the conquistadors, being a common herb in Spanish cooking and other Mediterranean cuisines. However, cumin works so well with many of the ingredients native to the new world that this spice quickly became an integral part of many Mexican recipes.

Mexican food is really one of the first examples of successful fusion cuisine in the world. The culinary tradition of Mexico is a blend of flavors, ingredients, and cooking methods from the new and old worlds, with foods and spices native to both the Americas and Europe. It has been a very successful pairing and Mexican spices new and old have made this country’s cuisine a favorite all over the world.

Mexican food combines a mixture of Mayan and Aztec heritage with Spanish accents and more, making it unique and something well worth tasting. You can find many Mexican recipes at MexicanFoodRecipes.org, including very easy meals for the novice cook. Why not rustle up some tasty Mexican food for dinner tonight?

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