Culture of Mexico

Food and drink

• Tacos al pastor — Pork on a spinning spit, a slice of pineapple caught on the tortilla, and a taquero's questions you need to be ready for. A midnight dish with a Lebanese grandfather.

Festivals and celebrations

• Día de Muertos — The first days of November, when families build an altar for their dead, spend a night in the cemetery, and nobody is sad: the dead are back for a visit.
• Las posadas and the Christmas season — From 16 December, nine nights of candlelit processions, a song at the door asking for shelter, hot ponche, tamales and a seven-pointed piñata, ending with Christmas Eve dinner at midnight.

Customs and etiquette

• La hora latina: the elastic hour — An invitation for eight means you may arrive from eight. The skill is knowing when the time is literal — and there is a phrase for saying so.
• The quinceañera — A girl's fifteenth birthday: a mass, a full-skirted dress, a waltz with her father, the last doll, and a party paid for by a dozen godparents. Many families spend more on it than on a wedding.
• Customs and etiquette in Mexico

Identity and society

• The Maya, then and now — Pyramids above the jungle, a real writing system, the zero and the calendar; and the six million people who speak some thirty Maya languages today, whose ancestors two travellers in 1839 proved had built it all.
• Identity and society in Mexico

Music and the arts

• Mariachi — Violins, trumpets, a vihuela and a guitarrón, silver-buttoned charro suits, and hundreds of musicians waiting at night in Plaza Garibaldi for someone to pay for a song.

Literature and storytelling

• Literature and storytelling in Mexico

Places and landscapes

• Places and landscapes in Mexico

History

• History in Mexico

Read

• Ahorita y los diminutivos — Ahorita and the Diminutives
• Benito Juárez — Benito Juárez
• Bernal Díaz y la Conquista — Bernal Díaz and the Conquest
• Cancún y la Riviera Maya — Cancún and the Riviera Maya
• El artículo 27 — Article 27
• El cacao de los aztecas — The Aztecs' Cacao
• El Camino Real de Tierra Adentro — The Royal Road of the Interior
• El Cinco de Mayo — Cinco de Mayo
• El cine de oro mexicano — The golden age of Mexican cinema
• El compadrazgo — Godparenthood
• El Día de la Madre — Mother's Day
• El Día de Muertos — The Day of the Dead
• El Grito de Dolores — The Cry of Dolores
• El habla chilanga — How Mexico City talks
• El Plan de Iguala — The Plan of Iguala
• El porfiriato — The Porfiriato
• El terremoto de 1985 — The 1985 Earthquake
• En el mercado de la Merced — At La Merced market
• En paz, de Amado Nervo — At Peace, by Amado Nervo
• Frida Kahlo — Frida Kahlo
• Hernán Cortés y la Conquista — Hernán Cortés and the Conquest
• La Ciudad de México y el agua — Mexico City and water
• La ciudad de Oaxaca — The City of Oaxaca
• La Guerra de Castas de Yucatán — The Caste War of Yucatán
• La migración hacia el norte — Migration to the north
• La piñata — The Piñata
• La quinceañera — The quinceañera
• La Revolución mexicana — The Mexican Revolution
• La Virgen de Guadalupe — The Virgin of Guadalupe
• Las mañanitas — Las mañanitas
• Las palabras del náhuatl — Words from Nahuatl
• Las posadas — Las posadas
• Los animales de Yucatán — The animals of Yucatán
• Los chiles en nogada — Chiles en nogada
• Los mariachis de Garibaldi — The Mariachis of Garibaldi Square
• Los tacos al pastor — Tacos al pastor
• Pancho Villa — Pancho Villa
• Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz — Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz
• Tenochtitlan — Tenochtitlan