American plants used as a condiment in Mexican cuisine

Abstract

The cuisine of Mexico is part of its food identity. It is recognized for its great biocultural diversity and the convergence of indigenous and foreign lineages. The objective of this contribution was to catalog condiment species of American origin used in Mexican cuisine and to propose a classification of their forms of use and consumption. Data collection was obtained from published accounts and by consulting the “Ethnobotanical Database of Useful Plants of Mexico of the Botanical Garden” of the Institute of Biology, UNAM. We catalogued 256 species, of these 218 are wild, 50 are endemic to Mexico and 5 are regulated in the NOM-059-SEMARNAT-2010. The most mentioned plant structure were leaves (145) and the biological form were herbs (118). The condiments were cataloged and classified into 3 groups: a) additives (193 species), were divided into colorants, salts, sweeteners and various others, and complexes (plants that share a similar name, smell, and taste), include 8 forms of food preparation; b) materials (66) were divided into food wrappings, tamales wrapping, coverings for oven and firewood; and c) condiments that are eaten raw (42) accompanying and/or food supplement.