COOKBOOK WATCH

When you bite into your next taco or enchilada, consider this: In the 19th century, pre-Columbian foods were stigmatized as lower-class. And well into this century, a corn diet was seen as the reason for the underdevelopment of the indigenous population rather than lack of land on which to produce adequate food. Not until 1940 did a nutritional study make clear that corn was just as valuable a foodstuff as the more prestigious wheat.

These are the things history professor Jeffrey M. Pilcher explores in his new book “Que Vivan los Tamales! Food and the Making of Mexican Identity” (University of New Mexico Press; $37.50 cloth; $16.95 paper), an analysis of the attitudes and historical events behind the Mexican cuisine we know today.

As late as 1940, eating tortillas was considered “one of the basic markers of poverty and backwardness,” Pilcher writes. Even later, in 1970, an article that appeared in the Mexican newspaper Excelsior stated, “when the soil was covered with corn, Mexicans were small and weak.”

Other corn-related foods were denigrated too. Huitlacoche, the black corn fungus that has become the darling of contemporary chefs, was regarded 50 years ago as a “disgusting” Indian food. To make it socially acceptable, it had to be wrapped in a crepe and smothered with bechamel sauce or served in soup.

After the conquest, wealthy Spanish inhabitants of Mexico maintained their elite stature by adhering to European foods and culture. During the 19th century, when Mexico achieved independence and Spain’s influence declined, French cuisine became the rage, and it was smart for cookbooks to be published simultaneously in Paris and Mexico. The Austrian archduke Maximilian, who reigned briefly as emperor of Mexico, incorporated mole poblano into his banquet menus, but the prejudice against native dishes didn’t decline seriously until mid-20th century.

Tracing the background of typical Mexican dishes, Pilcher finds mole poblano similar in concept to the heavily spiced dishes of medieval Europe. He says that chiles en nogada (chiles stuffed with meat and fruits and topped with a nut sauce) is Italian in origin and that pork lard was a substitute for elite, unobtainable olive oil. According to Pilcher, the flour tortilla is a true fusion dish, created by Mexicans who tried to force wheat into the same mold as corn.

This book is a fascinating read, but one does wonder how the name of the Spanish conqueror Hernan (also Hernando) Cortes slipped through as Fernando. Perhaps it escaped some proofreader astonished to learn that the act of grinding corn on the metate has been equated with female sexuality.