30 May 2025 / 10 House
Article suitable for older students
Find out moreWe’re trying to find pictures of what the Aztecs ate
ORIGINAL QUESTION received from - and thanks to - Robin: We are trying to find some really good examples of what the Aztecs ate. We know what they ate from various websites but would like some good pictures to help our 10 year old with her project. Could you help please. (Answered by Ian Mursell/Mexicolore)
We hope that what you’re looking for are primary sources of imagery rather than ‘generic’ close-ups of specific foodstuffs, such as avocados, tomatoes, chillies, tortillas, turkeys, beans, cocoa, squash, vanilla, etc.
You’ll already find on our website pages with detailed information - and, of course, pictures - on maize, chocolate, algae, pelicans, edible dogs and turkeys and more (links below, for example, take you to our page in ‘Ask the Experts’ on why the Aztecs worshipped maize, and to the mini-feature on Spirulina). Here we focus on evidence in the Florentine Codex that talks of foods prepared specially for particular festivals...
Which better to focus on than the ‘Great Vigil’ festival in the fourth ‘month’ of the Aztec farming year, a festival dedicated to the god (Cinteotl) and goddess (Chicomecóatl) of maize? According to the Codex, ‘In this feast... they went about the maize fields and brought stalks of the maize (which was still small), and they garnished them with flowers and went to place them before their gods, in the house called calpulli; and also they set food before them... They went in procession, to present them to the goddess Chicomecóatl [”Seven Snake”], and they returned them once more to their houses as blessed things; and from them they took the seed to plant next year. [They made an image of dough of the goddess]... and before her they offered all kinds of maize, and all kinds of beans, and all kinds of chía. For they said that she was the maker and giver of all those things which are the necessaries of life, that the people may live.’
In Chapter 23, the Florentine Codex goes on to stress just how central this goddess of maize was to the Aztecs’ view of the world:-
‘And, it was said, it was indeed this Chicomecóatl who made all our food - white maize, yellow maize, green maize shoots, black maize, black and brown mixed, variously hued; large and wide; round and ball-like; slender maize, thin; long maize; speckled red and white maize as if striped with blood, painted with blood- then the coarse, brown maize...; popcorn; the after-fruit; double ears; rough ears; and maturing green maize; the small ears of maize beside the main ear; the ripened green maize.’
‘Then the beans - white beans, yellow beans, red beans, quail-coloured beans, black beans, flesh-coloured beans, fat red beans, wild beans; amaranth... and also chía... All of these things, so they say, all of them they offered to the goddess.
We’ve rather concentrated on maize/corn, but hope you’ll at least have some authentic information and images to offer your daughter for her project... Good luck!
Picture sources
• Florentine Codex (original in the Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, Florence): images scanned from our own copy of the Club Internacional del Libro 3-volume facsimile edition, Madrid, 1994
• Codex Borbonicus (original in the Bibliotheque de l’Assembée Nationale, Paris); scanned with permission from our own copy of the ADEVA facsimile edition, Graz, Austria, 1974
• Photo of Rivera mural by Ian Mursell/Mexicolore
Comments (4)
Conor Harris
16th Mar 2016
This website was really useful for my history project, great info and images!
Sebastien Butler
12th Mar 2016
Thanks, this helped for one of my source analysis’ for my history project on the aztecs! This is quality information and sources!
Katia H
13th Jul 2013
Oh man, this article is making my mouth water! It seems the Aztecs had the most varied and appetizing (at least to me) diets in the ancient world.
katie
2nd Mar 2009
I think mexicalore i s fun and interesting for every one and i love all the props they use! They took you back hndreds of years and it seemed real thank you mexicolore
Mexicolore
Thank YOU, Katie!
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