Latin American cuisine is the typical foods, beverages, and cooking styles common to many of the countries and cultures in Latin America. Latin America is a highly racially, ethnically, and geographically diverse with varying cuisines. Some items typical of Latin American cuisine include maize-based dishes arepas, empanadas, pupusas, tacos, tamales, tortillas and various salsas and other condiments (guacamole, pico de gallo, mole, chimichurri, chili, aji, pebre). Sofrito, a culinary term that originally referred to a specific combination of sautéed or braised aromatics, exists in Latin American cuisine. It refers to a sauce of tomatoes, roasted bell peppers, garlic, onions and herbs. Rice, corn, pasta, bread, plantain, potato, yucca, and beans are also staples in Latin American cuisine.
Latin American beverages are just as distinct as their foods. Some of the beverages predate colonization. Some popular beverages include coffee, mate, guayusa, hibiscus tea, horchata, chicha, atole, cacao and aguas frescas.
Latin American desserts are as rich and diverse as the region’s culinary heritage. They often feature tropical fruits, creamy textures, and the sweetness of ingredients like sugar, condensed milk, and caramel. Many desserts reflect a blend of Indigenous, European, and African influences. They include dulce de leche, alfajor, rice pudding, tres leches cake, teja, beijinho, flan, and churros.
Traditional eating customs There are many different kinds of traditions associated with eating in Latin America. There are a variety of special days where certain foods are consumed, as well as many holidays that are celebrated in Latin America.
Traditions There are many forms of gratitude that inhabitants of Latin America employ when they discard excess food. Some people kiss the bread while others cut it before discarding it. Other such traditions are upheld largely by the country, Argentina and Uruguay have one such tradition known as a ":es:Ñoquis del 29" or "the Gnocchi 29", where on the 29th of each month a family eats gnocchi, sometimes placing money under their plate to wish for abundance in the next month.
There is a holiday celebrated in Latin America known as Three Kings Day (otherwise known as Epiphany) which is celebrated on January 6 of each year where families feast in honor of the visitation of the Three Magi.
In many countries of Latin America families consume lentils on the first day of the New Year because they are thought to bring prosperity.
Cultural influences Amerindian influence
Information about Amerindian cuisine comes from a great variety of sources. Modern-day Native peoples retain a rich body of traditional foods, some of which have become iconic of present-day Native social gatherings (for example, frybread). Foods like cornbread are known to have been adopted into the cuisine of the United States from Native American groups. In other cases, documents from the early periods of contact with European, African, and Asian peoples allow the recovery of food practices which passed out of popularity in the historic period (for example, black drink). Archaeological techniques, particularly in the subdisciplines of zooarchaeology and paleoethnobotany, have allowed for the understanding of other culinary practices or preferred foods which did not survive into the written historic record. The main crops Indigenous Amerindians used in Mexico and Central America were corn and beans, which are used in contemporary dishes such as pupusas, tamales, pozole, chuchitos, and corn tortillas. The main Indigenous Amerindian crops used by Natives of South America were potatoes, corn and chuño, used mainly in modern-day Colombian, Ecuadorian, Peruvian, Chilean, Bolivian and Paraguayan dishes such as arepas, papa a la huancaína, humitas, chipa guasu, locro and many more.
European influence
Europeans brought their culinary traditions, but quickly adapted several of the fruits and vegetables native to the Americas into their own cuisines. Europe itself has been influenced by other cultures, such as with the al-andalus in Spain, and thus their food was already a mix of their world. The European influence for many Latin American cuisine mainly comes from Spain, Portugal, Italy, and to a lesser extent France, although some influences from cuisines as diverse as British, German and Eastern European are also evident in some countries' cuisines such as Argentina and Uruguay, which have Italian cuisine as a main influence, with great Spanish, British, German, Russian, French, Jewish, Armenian and Eastern European influence as well.
African influence
Africans brought and preserved many of their traditions and cooking techniques. They were often given less desired cuts of meat, including shoulder and intestines. Menudo, Mondongo, Chunchullo for example, was derived from the habit of the Spaniards of giving the slaves cow's intestines. Enslaved Africans developed a way to clean the offal and season it to taste. African slaves in the southern United States did the same thing with pig's intestines, creating the dish known today as chitterlings. In South America, the scraps of food the landlords did not eat were combined to create new dishes that nowadays have been adopted into the cuisines of their respective nations (such as Peruvian tacu-tacu) and (Ecuadorian guatita).
Asian influence
A wave of immigrants from Asia, such as China and Japan, also influenced the cuisine of Peru, Brazil, Panama, and Ecuador. The Chinese brought with them their own spices and food-styles, something that the people of Latin America accepted into their tables. Not only that, but several Asian restaurants also adapted many Latin American food-styles into their own. This case can clearly be seen in the Peruvian and Ecuadorian chifa.
Middle Eastern influence
Migration from the Levant (Lebanon, Syria and Palestine) to countries like Brazil, Colombia, Venezuela, Ecuador, and Argentina has made some foods like kibbeh a common staple.
Caribbean
Caribbean cuisine is a fusion of Amerindian, European and African cuisine. These traditions were brought from the many homelands of this region's population. In addition, the population has created from this vast wealth of tradition many styles that are unique to the region.
Seafood is one of the most common cuisine types in the islands, though this is certainly due in part to their location. Each island will likely have its own specialty. Some prepare lobster, while others prefer certain types of fish. For example, the island of Barbados is known for its "flying fish."
Another Caribbean mainstay is rice, but the rice on each island may be a little different. Some season their rice, or add peas and other ingredients such as coconut. Sometimes the yellow rice is served on the side, but it is often part of a dish.
Cuba
Cuban cuisine is a distinctive fusion of Spanish, Indigenous, African and Caribbean cuisines. Cuban recipes share their basic spice palette (cumin, oregano, and bay leaves) and preparation techniques with Spanish and African cooking. The black Caribbean rice influence is in the use of local foods such as tropical fruits, root vegetables, fish, etc. A small but noteworthy Chinese influence is the daily use of steamed white rice as the main carbohydrate in a traditional Cuban meal. Rice is essential to a Cuban meal. It is usually eaten during lunch and dinner almost every day.
Unlike nearby Mexico and Central America, which have tortillas in their cuisines, the only resemblance to the use of tortillas is with casave, dating from pre-Columbian indigenous times which is called Casave. This flatbread is produced by grinding yuca (cassava) root to form a paste which, when mixed with water, becomes a dough. This is lightly cooked as a flat circular disk and air-dried to preserve it for consumption for a later time. It is traditionally reconstituted in salt water and eaten with roasted pork. The other culinary curiosity is a regional dish consisting of a roasted rodent uniquely found in Cuba, jutia (Desmarest's hutia).
Dominican Republic
The cuisine of the Dominican Republic, much like its neighbors, is a fusion of Indigenous (Taino), Spanish, and African cuisines. All or nearly all food groups are accommodated in typical Dominican cuisine, as it incorporates meat or seafood; grains, especially rice, corn, and wheat; vegetables, such as beans and other legumes, potatoes, yuca, or plantains, and salad; dairy products, especially milk and cheese; and fruits, such as oranges, bananas, and mangos. However, there is heaviest consumption of starches and meats, and least of dairy products and non-starchy vegetables. Differences between Dominican cuisine and those of other parts of the West Indies include the milder spicing, which mainly uses onions, garlic, cilantro, cilantro ancho (culantro), ají cubanela (cubanelle pepper), and oregano.
Sofrito, locally known as sazón, a sautéed mix including local herbs and spices, is used in many dishes. Throughout the south-central coast bulgur, or whole wheat, is a main ingredient in quipes and tipili, two dishes brought by Levantine Middle Eastern immigrants. Other favorite foods and dishes include chicharrón, yautía, pastelitos or empanadas, batata (sweet potato), pasteles en hoja (ground roots pockets), chimichurris, plátanos maduros (ripe plantain), yuca con mojo (boiled yuca/cassava) and tostones/fritos (fried plantains
Cuisine also varies due to geographical areas. In general, most Dominican meat dishes tend to involve pork, as pigs are farmed quite heavily on the island. Meat dishes tend to be very well cooked or even stewed in Dominican restaurants, a tradition stemming from the lesser availability of refrigeration on the island. Seaside Dominican fishing villages will have great varieties of seafood, the most common being shrimp, marlin, mahi-mahi or dorado, and lobster. Most villagers more commonly dine on cheap, lesser-quality fish, usually stewed with la criolla, a type of rice. Premium seafood tends to be too expensive for the many locals, and is saved for the island's upper class and the tourist resorts.
Puerto Rico
Puerto Rican cuisine has its roots in the cooking traditions and practices of the Amerindian Taínos, Europe (Spain), and Africa.
In 1493, Spanish colonizers began a period of great change on the islands. The Spanish introduced foods from around the world including Europe, Asia, and Africa. They realized that not all the food they introduced to this new location were viable. So, while they had to abandon some of what was fundamental to their home country, they began to discover the local assets such as pigs and cattle. Still, some of what the Spaniards brought to Puerto Rico became of great importance to modern traditional dishes such as plantains, bananas, and coffee; all of which are now prominent in current Puerto Rican food culture.
In the latter part of the 19th century, the cuisine of Puerto Rico was greatly influenced by the United States in the ingredients used in its preparation. Puerto Rican cuisine has transcended the boundaries of the island and can be found in several countries outside the archipelago. Many crops cultivated in Puerto Rico stem from New World origins like plantains.
Central America Central American cuisine is a fusion of Indigenous, Spanish and African influence. Most of the countries are within the Mesoamerica cultural and historic region. Some of its staple foods, such as maize, bell pepper, squash, beans, and tomatoes, originated and are native to the region and over time have become basic staples in other international cuisines around the world.Mann, Charles C. 1491: Revelations of the Americas before Columbus. Vinton Press. 2005. pp. 196–97.