Mexican cuisine consists of the cuisines and associated traditions of the modern country of Mexico. Its earliest roots lie in Mesoamerican cuisine. Mexican cuisine's ingredients and methods arise from the area's first agricultural communities, such as those of the Olmec and Maya, who domesticated maize, created the standard process of nixtamalization, and established foodways. Successive waves of other Mesoamerican groups brought with them their cooking methods. These included the Teotihuacanos, Toltec, Huastec, Zapotec, Mixtec, Otomi, Purépecha, Totonac, Mazatec, Mazahua, and Nahua. With the Mexica formation of the multi-ethnic Triple Alliance (Aztec Empire), culinary foodways became infused (Aztec cuisine).
Today's food staples native to the land include corn (maize), turkey, beans, squash, amaranth, chia, avocados, tomatoes, tomatillos, cacao, vanilla, agave, spirulina, sweet potato, cactus, and chili pepper. Its history over the centuries has resulted in regional cuisines based on local conditions, including Baja Med, Chiapas, Veracruz, Oaxacan, Lebanese Mexican and the American cuisines of New Mexican and Tex-Mex.