Mexican foods, like many other foods, can be boiled, grilled, or fried. These are modern Mexican cooking styles but Mexican traditional cooking techniques were rather different.

Mexican natives did not have ovens long ago and would cook their meals over an open fire pit.

The food would be placed in iron pots before cooking. This Mexican cooking method is similar to how we cook food on the grill these days. The Aztecs steamed and boiled their food in two handled clay pots before the Spanish introduced iron cooking pots. These two handled clay pots were called xoctli. The pot would be filled with food and then heated over an open fire. A lot of foods were fried and Mexican cooking features frying to this day.

It is a lot easier to cook Mexican food today than in was in the past. It takes less time both to prepare the food, because of superior cooking utensils, and to cook it. If you want to know how to cook Mexican food, there are various cooking methods, some of which were unknown in ancient Mexican times. If you want to make homemade tortillas, for example, you can use a flat-bottomed iron pan. Flan is a Mexican dessert, which is made in a spring form pan. Many years ago, the Mexicans had to make masa, which is a corn ground by hand. These days you can buy a metal grinder to do the work for you.

When you are making Mexican cooking recipes, the oven is perfect for many of them. You can bake meat, fish, and vegetables easily. You can also cook foods in a pot of water with added spices. A lot of Mexican recipes can even be made in a crock pot or slow cooker. Large steaming pots simplify the tamale cooking process. They take a long time to cook so a large pot means you can cook more at once, instead of in smaller batches.

Grilling Mexican food is another way to enjoy it. Foods used to be cooked this way many years ago and it was called "barbacoa." With this Mexican cookery method, meat was wrapped in banana leaves and cactus leaves and steamed over boiling water in a large pit. If you want to learn how to cook Mexican food, this is not the easiest technique for a novice! Food cooked in this way would have tasted similar to our grilled food of today. Fajitas are a good example of a perfect Mexican food to grill.

Centuries ago, the natives used what was called metate y mano. A large tool was made out of lava rock or stone. The surface was slightly concave. The tool was used to mash the ingredients. Another tool they used to mash ingredients was molcajete. It was mortar and pestle.

When you are cooking Mexican food, you need to stir. Wooden spoons have been around for hundreds of years and are still found in almost every kitchen today. There are many different types available, depending on the type of Mexican cooking recipes you are making. Some spoons are better for stirring thick sauces and others are better for moving sauting onions and garlic around in the pan.

The history of Mexican food is a fascinating subject. The cooking methods might have been modernized but the Mexican recipes available today are still authentic. Cooking foods in different ways means, the taste and texture will vary. Experiment with some different cooking methods for your homemade Mexican recipes and you will be able to spot the difference.