Feasting With Montezuma: Food and Farming in a Floating City

Gastropod

Cynthia Graber and Nicola Twilley

Science, Food, History, Arts

4.7 • 3.5K Ratings

🗓️ 10 June 2025

⏱️ 54 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Five centuries ago, before Spanish conquistadors arrived, what's now Mexico City was the Aztec capital of Tenochtitlan—and it took the European invaders' breath away. It was built on an island threaded with canals; it was one of the largest cities in the world; and the Spanish could hardly believe the sheer volume of food sold in the city's main market, let alone the quantity and variety of dishes enjoyed by the Aztec leader, Montezuma. But how did a city built in a lake—and located in a part of the world without cows, sheep, pigs, or chicken—grow enough to feed quarter of a million people? What does it mean to eat like an Aztec, and can you still do it today? This episode, we're time traveling (and real traveling) to find out! Join us on a trip to taste the flavors of Tenochtitlan, and explore the endangered “floating islands” that fed the city—with a menu that included insect eggs, blue-green algae, and some adorable salamanders that just might hold the secret of eternal youth. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Well, we do have some first-hand accounts by conquisadores, including Hernan Cortez and Bernaldez de Castillo.
0:09.9	And they kept making comparisons to things of their known world around the Mediterranean.
0:14.0	And so they often equated Tenocitlan to Venice because of all the canals.
0:20.1	Just to paint a picture, this episode, it's 1519.
0:25.2	The Spanish colonizers have finally summited the mountains that surround what's now Mexico City,
0:30.8	and they are gobsmacked.
0:32.9	Tenosh Titlan, which, as Nikki said, is where Mexico City sprawls today,
0:36.2	it was so incredibly impressive that it kind of shook the Spanish idea of what was civilization, basically the notion that the Europeans were civilized and everyone else wasn't. But Tenosh Chitlan shocked them with its grandeur and complexity. And it was completely different from anything they'd ever seen before. The other thing that was completely different, of course, was the food, what these people were eating and how they grew it.
1:01.0	And that's just what this episode of Gastropod is all about.
1:03.7	That's right. You're listening to Gastropod, the podcast that looks at food through the lens of science and history.
1:08.0	I'm Cynthia Craber.
1:08.9	And I'm Nicola Twilly.
1:10.2	And this episode,
1:11.7	we're taking a trip back in time to see how the Aztecs ate before there was any such thing
1:17.6	as Mexican cuisine. Because Cynthia and I recently went on a reporting trip to Mexico City,
1:23.3	and we couldn't help but wonder what it was like to be there before any Europeans had ever set foot in the region.
1:30.8	Unsurprisingly, what we really wanted to know was, what were they eating?
1:34.7	And when you look at Mexico City today, it's a huge urban tangle of streets and cars and concrete, and it's surrounded by mountains.
1:41.1	So where did they grow all the food? How did they feed themselves?
1:44.2	Without cows or sheep or chicken or pigs, what did they put at the center of the plate?
1:49.4	And how did they even survive without cheese? Plus, can you still eat like an Aztec today?
1:55.4	This episode, we're going on a quest to find out. It's a journey that involves lost flavors,
	...

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