Aztec Sacrifice & Pozole

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Subtitles: Jose Mendoza

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#tastinghistory #pozole #aztec

[TastingHistory]

UPDATE: Audio looks to be in sync again, thank you for your patience, please Share, Like and Subscribe, and keep warm by making your own plato de pozole. ^_^

[rologinger]

I'd love to go to a 'Tasting History' restaurant, imagine how cool it would be to go somewhere and get to try 4000 year old Babylonian food or Aztec food, even if it was modern takes on those dishes

[NODnuke]

I feel that the contrast of Max going from "THEY KILLED PEOPLE AND ATE THEM" to "It's like a hug!" really captures the essence of this channel.

[Wyrmaster]

I had a coworker who used to bring in a huge crockpot of posole without the chile, and a smaller crockpot of chile so you could make your bowl to your desired level of flavor

[kaylizzie]

I love how you can tell how much Max loves and respects his husband’s culture. And they way he talks about his mother in law is just precious 🥰

[TastingHistory]

Tasting History is closing in on ONE MILLION subscribers! So make sure you're subscribed so we can make it by Christmas. 🎄😊

[barrymalkin]

Max, you can put as many dried chilis in your Mexican soup as you like because, as Chef John would say, you're the Detective Frankie Rizzoli of your pozole.

[MrWmaginn]

Spartans: we have Melas Zomos, truly the most hardcore dish.

Aztec priest: hold my pulque.

[palibakufun]

My Mexican-American roommate I had in college's mother came to visit us one time, and she taught me her pozole recipe, and it's one of my favorite things to whip up and feed myself on the cheap for days. It's a pozole verde with chicken, with poblanos, tomatillos, and lots of fresh parsley and cilantro for its blended sauce (with onion and garlic of course), giving it a wonderful, beautiful deep green color. I like mine with raw onion, avocado, and lime juice

[FrikInCasualMode]

"Hmmm. Hominy... human meat... salt... no chillies... NO CHILLIES!?! I'm not making this culinary travesty!" 🤣We love you Max! Never change!

[KelseyDrummer]

I'd love to see José try it to judge if it's close to your MIL's. It's so sweet of her to not only share her recipe but allow you to share it with us! Please give her a hug for us Max!❤

[micmckenzie]

I just screamed and woke up my dog. This is my favorite food ever. It's as necessary as a tree at Christmas time. My Grandad taught me how to make it. I keep any leftovers on the freezer for days when I'm low or just need a hug in a bowl. Thank you for this episode.

[dnmurphy]

Almost all stews and soups improve with a day or two ageing. That looks nice.

[MajoraZ]

I do content on Mesoamerican history, so I wanted to give some clarification and correction on a few points: Regarding what is said at 8:45, while archeology DOES support that sacrifices by the Mexica of the Aztec capital of Tenochtitlan could occur at large scales, "thousands in a short time" might be too high. I believe the specific incident being referenced here is the alleged 1487 reconsecration of the Great Temple, where it was said that 80, 000 people were sacrificed in 4 days. However, basically no researchers take this figure seriously: Not even the gas chambers in WW2 worked that fast, and actual archeological evidence disputes it: Excavations show that from 1486 to 1502, only 600 skulls were deposited to one of the two Skull towers by the Great Temple, and that the larger skull rack held roughly 11, 700 skulls at it's maximum extent While there are points of ambiguity (how often the rack was cleared, what % of victims had skulls placed there/to the towers, etc), unless you believe that the rack was filled regularly every few years (and I think few researchers would argue that), then the current archeological evidence would support thousands, maybe only hundreds, of people being sacrificed per year, not per week.

Additionally, the sort of heart extraction ceremony described at that part of the video, or the gladiatorial ritual at 8:20, isn't specific to offerings to Huitzilopochtli: The exact excerpt given for the gladiatorial ritual for example was taken from the Florentine Codex's description of Tlacaxipehualiztli, which was primarily a ceremony to Xipe Totec. Gladatorial sacrifice and heart extraction were used in a variety of different rituals to different deities, though as noted in the video, most religious offerings didn't involve sacrifices at all: Most were offerings of small amounts of blood, or of food, animals, ritual art, etc. As notes at 9:45, while it is easy to look at these practices as barbaric, in reality they were viewed as formal religious ceremonies, not bloodsports with cheering hedonistic crowds. In some cases, like the Toxcatl festival, the main sacrifice had months of ritualistic steps and duties they had to preform prior to their sacrifice, living as the god Tezcatlipoca, visiting specific shrines, etc. Indeed, some accounts say that the captive soldiers being sacrificed would even be mourned by their captors, who they may have lived with for a time (some accounts also say that in addition to or rather then the victims flesh being given to royalty/nobility, it would have been given to the captor, or inversely, given to the people, EXCEPT the captor who couldn't partake). And contrary to what is said at 10:25, the victims would have been well aware of all this symbolism: Sacrifice was a pan-mesoamerican practice, all of the other city-states and kingdoms the Aztec interacted with had, at least to an extent, similar practices.

Lastly, and this is the most complex bit, Huitzilopochtli isn't quite the "Sun God", but this is a pretty common error and it's sort of a nuanced topic, but i'll try to sum it up simply. Many of the creation myths we have recorded of Aztec mythology have the world and it's people being cyclically created and destroyed, with each of these ages being named after and watched over by a god acting as the Sun. Which gods are which suns varies between accounts, but in most of the myths, the current sun is created by the god Nanahuatl jumping into a sacred bonfire to become Tonatiuh, the sun. There are no versions of this myth that place Huitzilopochtli as the sun. Rather, the myth described in this video, with Huitzilopochtli slaying his sister Coyolxauhqui and the Centzon Huītznauhtin, is merely an allegory for the rise of the sun and the moon/stars every day and night. So it is less that Huitzilopochtli and Coyolxauhqui are the literal sun and moon (which are different deities) or the sun and moon gods/goddesses, so much as that they may have some solar and lunar associations (and even then, I have seen some researchers contest that the myth has any solar/lunar associations at all!).

Of course, this is a pretty subtle distinction, so even some good sources will sometimes call Huitzilopochtli "the sun god", or mix stuff up even further and blend stuff from the New Fire Ceremony (which occurred every 52 years, and is a ritualistic recreation of the creation of a new sun) and state that Huitzliopotchli needs sacrifices to fight off the tzitzimime (a group of lesser deities associated with stars, who were thought to devour the world/sun if the New Fire Ceremony wasn't preformed) every night; when in reality as far as I am aware there are no actual myths about that, and THAT is probably where you're getting the "sacrifices are needed for the sun to rise each day" thing from (To my knowledge, there is no specific version of a creation myth where sacrifices are needed for the sun to rise each day: There are, however, myths where the gods sacrifice themselves to create the sun, such as with nanahuatl, or to move the sun through the sky, or to create humanity, etc, and sacrifices are symbolically repaying this debt. Some interpretations of Aztec religion involve an exchange of an energy force sacrifice might be repaying, or even the gods themselves or reality being just different forms of energy, which ritual cannablism would have tied into too)

That being said, Aztec/Nahua deities tended to have their traits or identities mix or blend into one another, so which gods are actually distinct deities or are aspects of one another can be hard to suss out (see also what I said above about gods perhaps being fluid or not strict entities, but merely abstractions of an energy force) so while there is no literal singular Nahuatl or Spanish source dating to the 16th or 17th century I know of that features Huitzliopotchli as the 5th sun (I have seen somebody claim that he is shown as such in the Codex Ramirez as "The Blue Tezcatlipoca", but the "4 Tezcatlipocas" and Huitzliopotchli as one of them seems to be a misreading of the original source, see ClickyPenned on twiter) or him fighting of the Tzitzimime, that sort of fluidity between deities and their roles is a real thing and may play a part here (Indeed, there are some iconographic ties between Coyolxauhqui, her/Huitzloptuchli's mother Coatlicue, the Tzitzimime, etc)

[figmo]

Your MIL's recipe looks and sounds fantastic! Years ago when I was in Puerto Vallarta, the concierge at the hotel kept trying to get my friend and me to go to some gringo restaurant that served "authentic Mexican fajitas." We balked, so she had our cab driver take us to another place, which turned out to be closed. We figured she was expecting us to have him take us to the place that probably gave her kickbacks for recommending it and instead asked, "Where would YOU go if you wanted real Mexican food?"

"You mean, like pozole?"

"YES!!! YES!!! EXACTLY!!!"

He drove us to a little hole-in-the-wall place where nobody spoke English. Fortunately, I spoke enough Spanish to order for both of us, and we had one of the best meals of our trip.

[KJayPlays]

It’s so cute to hear you say “mother in law”. Congratulations again on the wedding. I’m so happy for you, and it’s great that you have a good relationship with your in-laws 🤍

[mdeardley]

I’m so happy that you made an exception to your rule of using written recipes for this one. And since it comes from Jose’s great-grandmother, I’m sure it goes back at least a hundred years.

[eddiespaghetti]

Recently started listening to Ketchup — I’m glad to know it’s Jose we have to thank for the fantastic CC. I’m autistic and have hearing issues, both making it hard to watch an otherwise wonderful show like this and it’s a rare gem to find so much care put into the subtitles on this website. So a big, warm thank you, Jose! :)

[carlosmoreno]

Chicano here from south Texas. I really appreciate how you approached this subject. There are many pozoles and many interpretations of its origins, but I think you’ve nailed it. I especially appreciate your reverence to the preColombian aspects without glossing over the unsavory bits. Good job. Viva La Raza

[stevecasvan]

I'm 60 years old. My grandmother's recipe used oxtail as the meat. This was inexpensive because there's not a whole lot else you can do with it other than a soup or a stew. We never had any of the garnishes or condiments. Just four or five bowls full and a bunch of tortillas and you are good to go!