Article suitable for Top Juniors and above

Fish!

19th Dec 2023

Mexica or Aztec fisherfolk at work c. 1550; based on the Plano Alonso de Santa Cruz

An enquirer has written to us asking what species of fish the Aztecs caught and consumed. As the question is of broad general interest, we’re posting here a brief introduction. The codices - both Central Mexican and Maya - are replete with images of fish, and of Mexica people fishing...! (Compiled by Ian Mursell/Mexicolore)

The best overall introduction to this subject, we think, is in The Codex Mendoza by Berdan and Rieff Anawalt (1992): in volume 2 they write:-
’Fishing was a very important activity for the residents of Tenochtitlan; the Lake Texcoco area was rich in aquatic foodstuffs. These, together with seafood carried to the highlands by rapid foot transport, are described in Sahagún’s account of the fish seller, who also caught many of his wares. To do this, he used nets, snares, fishhooks, weirs, and spears as well as catching some fish with his hands. The fish varied in size and type: shellfish, gourd fish, spotted and white fish. Some were sold wrapped in maize husks and toasted, while others were roasted in leaves. the fish seller also dealt in shrimp, turtles, eels, fish roe, and water-fly eggs, as well as water flies, water worms, and worm excrement’.

All the major Spanish chroniclers - Sahagún, Torquemada, Durán, Tezozomoc, Clavijero... - refer to the abundance of fish species known to the Mexica. In his book Pesca Prehispánica Vilches Alcázar (1980) mentions over a hundred: we list many of them below, but in Spanish - anyone interested can do the legwork of looking for their English equivalents!
Modern authors of books on Mexican cuisine continue in the same vein. Spieler (1991) writes: ‘With over 6,000 miles of relatively unspoiled coastline there is scarcely an area where fish does not figure prominently in the diet. Spindly-legged crabs, great, tentacled squid and octopus, sweet conch, robust shark meat, bring-shelled oysters and clams, the ever-present snapper and hearty swordfish, frog’s legs, and beef-like steaks of terrapin - sea creatures abound.’

Recalling that the Aztecs began their epic climb to dominance as a poor tribe of migrants struggling to survive in the marshes around Lake Texcoco in the 14th century, Soustelle (1961) writes: ‘The Mexicans [Aztecs] ate a wide variety of things that came from the water - frogs, axolotls, tadpoles (atepocatl), fresh-water shrimps (acociltin), little water-flies (amoyotl), aquatic larvae (aneneztli), white worms (ocuiliztac), and even the eggs that a water-fly, the axayacatl, laid in enormous quantities upon the water and which were eaten as a sort of caviar under the name of ahuauhtli.’

So, here goes the list provided by Recaredo Vilches Alcázar:-
ballenas, delfines, manatíes, tiburones, mantas, cazones, puercos, lobos, pez espada, sierras, bacalaos, palometas, pargos, robalos, meros y chernas, lizas, rayas, bonitos, chuchos, sábalos, barbos, guitarras, corvados, picudas, langostas, mojarras, suelas, aloscu, pulpos, esturiones, dorados, pámpanos, morunas, peces-rojos, pargos mulatos, parquetes, guachinangos, sargos, lucios, congrios, doncellas, cabrillas, estirones, sapos, lampreas, rodaballos, platijas, besugos, bermejuelas, agujas, pez-rey, brecas, linternas, roncadores, lentones, jibias, anchovas, carpiones, sollos, anguilas, salmones, atunes, cornudos, barberos, sirgueros, lenguados, caballas, viejas, pez-ojo, ‘coamichin’, ‘colomichin’, ‘cochomichin’, carpas, lizas, truchas, trillas, sérieles, bobos, robalos, barbos o bagres, dorados, jaibas, corvinas, langostinos, cabezudos, mojarras, angulas, ‘axolotes’...

Sources/quotes:-
• Berdan, Frances F. and Rieff Anawalt, Patricia (1992) The Codex Mendoza, University of California Press; Volume 2 ‘Description of the Codex’, p. 162
• Soustelle, Jacques (1970) Daily Life of the Aztecs on the Eve of the Spanish Conquest, Stanford University Press, p. 151
• Spieler, Marlena (1991) Flavours of Mexico, Grafton Books, p. 135
• Vilches Alcázar, Recaredo (1980) Pesca prehispánica, Banpesca, Mexico, pp. 9-10.

Images:-
• Main, pic 3 & pic 4r: images scanned from Vilches Alcázar, above
• Pic 1: image scanned from the James Cooper Clark 1938 facsimile edition (London) of the Codex Mendoza
• Pic 2: image from the Florentine Codex scanned from our own copy of the Club Internacional del Libro 3-volume facsimile edition, Madrid, 1994.