Rent was paid in kind to the landowners who were either Aztec nobles (pipiltin), warriors given the land as a reward for services rendered, or the king himself (tlatoani), who all managed their estates through intermediary administrato… Octli was an alcoholic drink that was used only by nobility, royalty and warriors. It was produced from the sap of the maguey plant. The two more well known drinks that the Aztecs drank were chocolate base drinks and octli.

The seeds were eaten fresh, dried or roasted.Red and green tomatoes were often mixed with chilli in sauces or as filling for The main fruits consumed were guavas, papayas, custard apples, The Aztec diet was mostly dominated by fruit and vegetables, however they did eat a variety of fish and wild game.Rabbits, birds, frogs, tadpoles, salamanders, green iguanas, pocket gophers and insects (and their eggs and larvae) all served as valuable food sources.The Aztecs also ate domesticated turkeys, duck and dogs, and at times larger wild animals such as deer. The drinkers dipped long, hollow reed tubes into the pulque and anyone who wished was allowed to drink. She is attended by children responsible for looking after the drunken grandparents. The participants all shoved and pushed each other in an effort to find the one reed in the bunch of 260 that was actually hollow, and only the one who eventually discovered the hollow straw was allowed to drink freely from the pulque vessel.According to another account from Sahagún, when the day 2 Rabbit fell, priests of the various pulque gods came together in a lavish celebration. It transformed the maize from simple carbohydrates to a nutritional package of calcium, iron, copper and zinc.Another important staple in the Aztec diet, beans served as a good source of protein. This website uses cookies to provide you with the best browsing experience.This website uses cookies so that we can provide you with the best user experience possible. Pulque, known to the Nahua as octli, was a drink made from the fermented juice of the maguey, or agave, plant. Cookie information is stored in your browser and performs functions such as recognising you when you return to our website and helping our team to understand which sections of the website you find most interesting and useful.Strictly Necessary Cookie should be enabled at all times so that we can save your preferences for cookie settings.If you disable this cookie, we will not be able to save your preferences. A mythical story recorded in the sixteenth-century Mexican history known as the But while these early accounts suggest that there were strict rules about drinking pulque, there were nevertheless plenty of circumstances in which people could and did drink freely, even to excess, both in the course of daily life and in ritual circumstances. Until the 19thand 20thcenturies, it was probably the most widespread alcoholic beverage in Mexico. Commoners also engaged in fasting, but less rigorously.In this first episode of our four-part audio drama an imprisoned Perkin Warbeck, played by Iain Glen, is interrogated in the Tower of London over his true identity, following the collapse of his rebellion.Aztec women were responsible for cooking, as for almost all domestic duties.Not using oils or fats, the main method of food preparation was boiling, grilling or steaming in two-handled clay pots or jars called Maize, beans and squash were the three staple foods, to which nopales and tomatoes were usually added. One account by Sahagún describes the chief priest of “Ometochtzin,” or 2 Rabbit, bringing together a group of other pulque priests and organizing a kind of game in which 260 reed tubes were put into the sacred pulque vessel.

The Aztecs and Alcohol. For example, the festival of Tecuilhuitontli, which fell in July, was a special time for celebrating the salt merchants, who engaged in extensive drinking.

Indeed, pulque was one of a number of substances ritually ingested across Mesoamerica in order to bring on altered states of consciousness, to access other realms, or to induce visions of the divine.

The Aztecs of central Mexico appear to have been a fairly abstemious lot, issuing stern rules about who could drink the alcoholic beverage known as pulque, how much, and under what circumstances. Durán explains that the children were charged with delivering the elderly home safely, keeping the intoxicated grandparents covered up, and “restraining and guiding” them so they would not get into any trouble by “committing excesses and transgressions,” fall “into a river or a hole,” or end up in a “mortal accident” of the kind the drunkard, above, had suffered in falling into the chasm.What is more, many recurring Aztec ceremonial rituals involved drinking pulque as a routine and even prescribed part of events. The Aztecs of central Mexico appear to have been a fairly abstemious lot, issuing stern rules about who could drink the alcoholic beverage known as Indeed, colonial Mexican chronicles are filled with cautionary tales about the negative consequences of drinking the “fifth cup” for the individual and the community alike. Food such as fruit, vegetables, spices and edible flowers, dogs and birds could be bought in the Aztec markets. Current Topics in Aztec Studies: Essays in Honor of Dr. H.B. Chilli and salt were ubiquitous.The Aztec diet was dominated by fruit and vegetables, but at times also included domesticated animals such as dogs, turkeys, ducks and honey bees.Aztec woman blowing on maize before putting it into the cooking pot (Credit: Florentine Codex).To some of the first Europeans, the Aztecs described it as “precious, our flesh, our bones”.Maize came in varieties of colour, texture, size and quality, and was eaten as corn Maize was broken down by nixtamalization: dry maize grain would be soaked and cooked in an alkaline solution, usually limewater.This process would release the outer hull of the grain, and make a maize easier to grind. They were served at every meal.The beans would be soaked in water for several hours and then boiled until they were soft. The Aztec civilisation, which flourished in the 14th century until the fall of the Aztec Empire in 1519, was a society based around agriculture.Most Aztecs would spent their days working their fields or cultivating food for their great capital city of Tenochtitlan.Since it was easier to grow crops than hunt, the Aztec diet was primarily plant-based and focused on a few major foods.Maize, beans, salt and chilli peppers were the constants of Aztec cuisine, providing the average Aztec with a well-rounded diet without major deficiencies in vitamins and minerals.Most Aztecs ate twice a day: the first after a few hours of morning work, and the second during the hottest hour of the day: at around 3 o’clock.Breakfast would usually be a maize porridge with chillies or honey, or Banquets and feasts, as well as the ceremony surrounding them, played a key role in Feasts were determined by the religious calendar, and were used as a display of material wealth.