The official name of Mexico is Estados Únidos Mexicanos (United Mexican States).
The border between Mexico and the United States is the second largest border in the world (only the U.S.-Canadian border is longer)
Mexican children do not receive presents on Christmas Day. They receive gifts on January 6, the day on which Mexicans celebrate the arrival of the Three Wise Men.
Snakes appear repeatedly in Mexican mythology, from the serpent god Kukulcan which can be found the side of the Chichen Itza pyramid to the feathered serpent god, Quetzalcoatl.
Mexico is home to a very rare rabbit called the volcano rabbit which lives near Mexican volcanoes.
Mexico remained under Spanish control for nearly 300 years until the Mexican people, led by a priest named Father Hidalgo, rose up against the Spanish on September 16, 1810. Hidalgo is widely considered the father of modern Mexico, and Mexican Independence
Spanish conquerors brought bullfighting to Mexico, and, second to Spain, Mexico now has the most bullfighting rings in the world. Bullfighting takes place from November to April, and the Plaza Mexico is the largest bullring in the world.
In 1910, under the guidance of Emiliano Zapata and Pancho Villa, Mexican peasants revolted against the dictatorship of Porfirio Díaz to gain equality and land. The civil war lasted 10 years and took the lives over 1 million people.
In 1994, a group of Mexican peasants and farmers called the Zapatistas (named after Emiliano Zapata) started another revolt to highlight the differences between the rich and poor.
Even though over 50 native tongues are still spoken in rural locations, Spanish is the national language of Mexico. In fact, Mexico is the most populated Spanish-speaking country in the world
Burritos are a traditional food of Ciudad Juárez, a city in the northern Mexican state of Chihuahua, where people buy them at restaurants and roadside stands.
Northern Mexican border towns like Villa Ahumada have an established reputation for serving burritos. Authentic Mexican burritos are usually small and thin, with flour tortillas containing only one or two ingredients: some form of meat or fish, potatoes,
rice, beans, asadero cheese, chile rajas, or chile relleno.
Other types of ingredients may include barbacoa, mole, refried beans and cheese, and deshebrada (shredded slow-cooked flank steak).
he deshebrada burrito also has a variation with chile colorado (mild to moderately hot) and salsa verde (very hot). The Mexican burrito may be a northern variation of the traditional taco de Canasta, which is eaten for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.
Although burritos are one of the most popular examples of Mexican cuisine outside of Mexico, in Mexico they are only popular in the northern part of the country.
However, they are beginning to appear in some nontraditional venues in other parts of Mexico. Wheat flour tortillas used in burritos are now often seen throughout much of Mexico
(possibly due to these areas being less than optimal for growing maize),
despite at one time being particular to northwestern Mexico, the Southwestern US Mexican American community, and Pueblo Indian tribes.
Burritos are commonly called tacos de harina (wheat flour tacos) in central and southern Mexico and burritas (feminine variation, with 'a') in northern-style restaurants outside of northern Mexico proper.
A long and thin fried burrito similar to a chimichanga is prepared in the state of Sonora and vicinity, and is called a chivichanga.[18]
Before the development of the modern burrito, the Mesoamerican peoples of Mexico used corn tortillas to wrap foods, with fillings of chili peppers, tomatoes, mushrooms, squash, and avocados.[
The Pueblo people of the Southwestern United States also made tortillas with beans and meat sauce fillings prepared much like the modern burrito.
The precise origin of the modern burrito is not known. However, it is generally believed to have originated in the Mexican-American community. Some have speculated that it may have originated with vaqueros in northern Mexico in the nineteenth century.
Many have traced its roots to the farmworkers of the fields in California's Central Valley, in Fresno and Stockton
Farmworkers that picked many of the Central Valley's agriculture would prepare lunches in the fields consisting of homemade flour tortillas, beans and salsa picante or hot sauce.
Other farmworkers would prepare their burritos at home and wrap them in foil wrap and place them in the sun so they could warm up.
he burrito was identified as a regional item from Guanajuato and defined as "Tortilla arrollada, con carne u otra cosa dentro,
que en Yucatán llaman coçito, y en Cuernavaca y en Mexico, taco"
(A rolled tortilla with meat or other ingredients inside, called 'coçito' in Yucatán and 'taco' in the city of Cuernavaca and in Mexico City).
An often-repeated folk history is that of a man named Juan Méndez who sold tacos in a street stand in the Bella Vista neighborhood of Ciudad Juárez, using a donkey as a transport for himself and the food, during the Mexican Revolution period (1910–1921)
To keep the food warm, Méndez wrapped it in large homemade flour tortillas underneath a small tablecloth.
As the "food of the burrito" (i.e., "food of the little donkey") grew in popularity, "burrito" was eventually adopted as the name for these large tacos.
Another creation story comes from 1940s Ciudad Juárez, where a street food vendor created the tortilla-wrapped food to sell to poor children at a state-run middle school.
The vendor would call the children his burritos, as burro is a colloquial term for dunce or dullard. Eventually, the derogatory or endearing term for the children was transferred to the food they ate.
The word burrito means "little donkey" in Spanish, as a diminutive form of burro, or "donkey".
The name burrito as applied to the dish possibly derives from the appearance of bedrolls and packs that donkeys carried
The word "burrito" appears in the Dictionary of Mexicanisms from 1895. It is the term used in the regional area of Guanajuato to describe a "Tortilla rolled, with meat or other food within, that in Yucatan is known as coçito, and Cuernavaca and Mexico, as
taco."[5] Having been published in 1895, this fact discredits the etymology that notes the origin of the "burrito" during the Mexican Revolution (1910-1921) in the City of Cuidad Juarez by Juan Méndez.
In other regions of Mexico such as in the state of Tamaulipas, similar types of food are known as "flauta" (flute).