109 Fun Facts About Mexican Food

Roughly how many ingredients does an average mole poblano contain?

Mole poblano typically calls for around 20 ingredients, among them several dried chiles, chocolate, nuts, seeds, bread and spices; some Oaxacan moles run to 30 or more.

Pozole is a hearty Mexican soup built around which key ingredient?

Hominy, maize kernels nixtamalized until they shed their hulls and soften, is the base of every pozole; the stew is celebration food, a fixture of Mexico's Independence Day tables.

Menudo, the red-chile soup eaten as a weekend hangover cure, is built around which cut?

Tripe, the lining of a cow's stomach, needs hours of simmering to turn tender, so menudo is made in big batches for family gatherings and weekend mornings.

In tropical parts of Mexico such as Oaxaca, tamales are commonly wrapped in what instead of corn husks?

Banana leaves replace corn husks in Oaxaca and across Mexico's tropical south, where cooks also wrap pork in the same leaves before burying it to roast underground.

The green chile, white sauce and red pomegranate of chiles en nogada are meant to represent what?

The colours echo the Mexican flag: green poblano chile, white nogada sauce and red pomegranate seeds, which is why the dish is a fixture of September's Independence Day season.

The creamy nogada sauce on chiles en nogada is made from which nut?

Walnuts give nogada its name, from nogal, the Spanish for walnut tree; ground with milk, cream and fresh cheese, they make the pale sauce poured over the stuffed chiles.

Legend says chiles en nogada were first served in 1821 to which general, soon crowned Mexico's first emperor?

Agustín de Iturbide, crowned emperor the following year, is said to have been fêted with the dish just after signing the Treaty of Córdoba, which sealed Mexico's independence; tradition credits convent nuns with the recipe.

The word guacamole comes from Classical Nahuatl and literally translates to what?

Guacamole is Nahuatl āhuacamōlli, literally 'avocado sauce': āhuacatl (avocado) plus mōlli (sauce), the same mōlli behind the word mole.

Guacamole is traditionally mashed with salt in which stone tool?

A molcajete is carved by hand from a single block of volcanic basalt, three stubby legs included; its pestle, the tejolote, is cut from the same stone.

In the early 1900s, avocados in the United States often went by what name?

Alligator pear was the common name, above all in Florida, until California growers founded an association in 1915 and promoted 'avocado', from Nahuatl āhuacatl, instead.

In nixtamalization, corn is soaked and cooked in what kind of solution before grinding?

Limewater, a solution of slaked lime (calcium hydroxide), provides the alkaline bath that loosens the hulls, improves the flavour and makes the grain's nutrients far more available.

Nixtamalizing corn makes tryptophan available and helps prevent which deficiency disease?

Pellagra, the niacin-deficiency disease, struck people who adopted maize without the process, from southern Europe to the US South, where it turned epidemic in the early 1900s.

What is the name of the dough formed from nixtamalized cornmeal that becomes tortillas and tamales?

Masa exists thanks to nixtamalization: plain ground corn won't bind when wetted, but nixtamalized corn forms a pliable dough, which can also be dried into the pantry flour masa harina.

The Aztecs and other Nahuatl speakers called tortillas by what name?

Tlaxcalli, literally 'something baked', was the Nahuatl name for the flatbread; the Spanish later applied their own word tortilla, and one reading of the state name Tlaxcala is 'place of tortillas'.

The Spanish word tortilla, from torta plus a diminutive ending, literally means what?

Little cake is the literal sense: Spanish torta (cake) plus the diminutive ending -illa. Spaniards applied the word to the corn flatbread they met in Mexico in the 16th century.

Elote, Mexican street corn on the cob, is classically dusted with which crumbly grated cheese?

Cotija, named after the town of Cotija, is traditionally made only in the rainy season, then aged until salty and crumbly enough to grate over the mayonnaise-coated cob with chile powder.

Chilaquiles, fried tortilla pieces simmered in salsa, are usually eaten at which meal?

Breakfast is the hour for chilaquiles: the dish is a classic way to use up the previous day's tortillas and salsa, typically topped with onion, crumbled cheese and a fried egg.

Which spice gives the Mexican pork dish cochinita pibil its burnt-orange colour?

Annatto, the seed of the achiote tree, is ground into a paste with bitter orange juice for the marinade; the pork is then roasted in a píib, a pit oven dug into the ground.

The word barbacoa, the root of the English word barbecue, is generally traced to which language?

Taíno, the Arawakan language of the Caribbean, most likely gave Spanish barbacoa, a framework of sticks for cooking over fire; in Mexico the word came to mean meat slow-cooked in a pit lined with maguey leaves.

What does the word carnitas literally mean?

Little meats is the literal sense of carnitas, carne plus a diminutive ending; the pork is braised in lard over low heat until tender inside and crisp at the edges.

Carnitas are most closely associated with which Mexican state?

Michoacán is carnitas country: the dish is said to come from the state, and the town of Quiroga is renowned for stalls where pork simmers slowly in lard until tender.

A churrera pipes churro dough into hot oil through a nozzle of what shape?

Star nozzles give churros their ridges as the dough is squeezed into the hot oil; Mexican churros are then often filled with cajeta or chocolate.

Cajeta, the caramel famously made in Celaya, is a dulce de leche made from which animal's milk?

Goat's milk sets cajeta apart from cow's-milk dulce de leche; the sweet from Celaya, in Guanajuato, takes its name from the small wooden boxes it was once packed in.

Flan napolitano, made in parts of Mexico, enriches caramel custard with which added ingredient?

Cream cheese, beaten into the base of eggs, condensed milk and evaporated milk, gives flan napolitano a creamier body; the plain version is what the French call crème caramel.

Mexican horchata is typically made from which grain?

Rice, soaked, ground and strained with cinnamon and sugar, makes Mexican horchata; the Spanish original, Valencia's horchata de chufa, is made from tiger nuts instead.

Agua de jamaica, one of the most common aguas frescas, is brewed from which flower?

Hibiscus gives agua de jamaica its deep red and tart edge, though not from the petals: the drink is steeped from the dried calyces, the same infusion the Caribbean calls sorrel.

Tequila must be distilled from which specific plant?

Blue agave is the only agave tequila may use; jimadores strip its leaves with a long-handled blade, the coa, to reach the piña, the core that is cooked and crushed for its juice.

In which year was the Agave Landscape around the town of Tequila declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site?

The Agave Landscape and Ancient Industrial Facilities of Tequila joined the World Heritage List in 2006; the site covers the agave fields, historic distilleries and the towns of Tequila, El Arenal and Amatitán.

The red 'worm' dropped into some bottles of mezcal is actually the larva of what?

A moth: the red gusano is the caterpillar of Comadia redtenbacheri, which infests agave plants; producers only began dropping it into bottles in the mid-20th century.

The vertical spit of meat for tacos al pastor is called a trompo, after which toy?

A spinning top is what trompo means: the stacked, marinated pork turns on its spit beside the flame, and thin slices are shaved straight into small corn tortillas.

In Mexican slang, what is a chela, a word often linked to the name michelada?

A cold beer: chela is Mexican slang for beer and helada means ice-cold, so 'mi chela helada' is one story behind michelada; the drink adds lime juice, chile sauces and spices.

Which flavouring traditionally perfumes the enriched dough of pan de muerto?

Orange blossom water, often with orange zest, perfumes pan de muerto; the strips of dough on top stand for bones, and the loaf is set on home altars for the returning dead.

Rosca de reyes, the ring cake with a hidden Child Jesus figurine, is eaten around which date?

January 6, Epiphany or Día de Reyes, is rosca day: the ring cake recalls the Magi's visit, and whoever finds the hidden figurine owes the others tamales at a later feast.

In Mexico, whoever finds the figurine in the rosca de reyes must host a tamale party on which feast day?

Candlemas, Día de la Candelaria on 2 February, is when the finder must gather the same guests again and serve them tamales, a debt the cake hands out weeks in advance.

Which milky, viscous drink of fermented agave sap was considered sacred in pre-Columbian Mexico?

Pulque, fermented from maguey sap (aguamiel), was the sacred drink of the goddess Mayahuel in Aztec ritual, its use limited to priests, elders and nobles; today it is poured in pulquerías with a sour, yeasty tang.

A chipotle is the smoke-dried, ripened form of which chile?

Jalapeño chiles, left on the plant until deep red and then smoke-dried, become chipotles; the name is Nahuatl chīlpoctli, 'smoked chile'.

Which region of Mexico holds a protected designation of origin for its habanero peppers?

The Yucatán Peninsula grows most of Mexico's habaneros and holds a protected designation of origin for them, so only peppers from its three states may carry the peninsula's name.

The habanero pepper is named after which city?

Havana, Cuba gave the habanero its name, Spanish for 'of Havana'; the pepper actually began in the Amazon basin, and today it is grown mainly in Mexico.

Wilbur Scoville, who devised the heat scale for chiles in 1912, worked in which profession?

Pharmacist Wilbur Scoville was solving a problem for his employer, the drug maker Parke-Davis: its muscle salve was made with chile peppers, and the firm needed a way to standardise how much heat went into it.

The original Scoville organoleptic test measured a chile's heat using what?

A panel of human tasters, five of them, sampled a chile extract at increasing dilutions until at least three could no longer feel any burn; that dilution factor became the Scoville rating.

When a poblano chile is dried, what is it called?

Ancho, Spanish for 'wide', is the dried poblano, named for its broad, flat, heart-shaped pod; fresh, the same chile is the one stuffed for chiles rellenos.

Mexican salsa verde gets its colour and tang from which cooked ingredient?

Tomatillos, husked green fruits related to the tomato, are boiled or roasted and blended with chile, onion and cilantro to make salsa verde, the classic sauce for chilaquiles and enchiladas.

In the early 1990s, US dollar sales of salsa famously overtook those of which condiment?

Ketchup was edged out rather than routed: a 1992 market report found salsa sales had jumped 14% in 1991 to about $640 million, slipping past ketchup's $600 million.

Oaxaca cheese, the stringy melting cheese rolled up like a ball of yarn, is also known by what name?

Quesillo is what Oaxacans call it: a pasta filata cheese stretched into ribbons like mozzarella and wound into a ball, and the go-to filling for quesadillas.

Huitlacoche, a Mexican delicacy stuffed into quesadillas, is what exactly?

A corn fungus, Ustilago maydis, swells the kernels into grey-black galls; US farmers call it corn smut and destroy it, while Mexican cooks prize its earthy, mushroom-like flavour.

Nopales, the flat green pads sold fresh in Mexican markets, come from which cactus?

Prickly pear is the cactus behind nopales: market sellers scrape the pads clean of spines and slice them to order, and the plant's fruit, the tuna, is eaten too.

Chapulines, toasted on a comal with garlic, lime and salt, are what kind of creature?

Grasshoppers, toasted until crunchy, are a market snack in Oaxaca; in 2017 a stand selling them at Seattle Mariners baseball games won national fame.

The Caesar salad is credited to restaurateur Caesar Cardini, who first served it in 1924 in which Mexican city?

Tijuana, where Cardini ran a restaurant for Americans dodging Prohibition, is the birthplace; by his daughter's account, a Fourth of July rush in 1924 emptied the kitchen and the salad was improvised from what was left.

Nachos take their name from 'Nacho', a common Spanish nickname for which first name?

Ignacio Anaya, known as Nacho, was a maître d' in a Mexican border town when he improvised the dish in 1943 for a party of US army wives; 21 October is now the International Day of the Nacho.

In which Mexican border town were the first nachos improvised in 1943?

Piedras Negras, across the Rio Grande from Eagle Pass, Texas, is where maître d' Anaya fried tortilla triangles and topped them with melted cheese and pickled chiles for a party of US officers' wives, then named the plate after himself.

Tacos al pastor adapt a shawarma technique brought to Mexico by immigrants from which country?

Lebanon sent waves of immigrants to Mexico in the early 20th century; their lamb shawarma became Puebla's tacos árabes and then, with pork marinated in chiles and pineapple, tacos al pastor.

The 'drowned' torta ahogada, soaked in chile de árbol sauce, is which city's signature dish?

Guadalajara's signature sandwich depends on its bread: the local birote has a crust thick and crunchy enough to be drowned in chile sauce without falling apart, as a softer roll would.

The concha, a classic Mexican pan dulce, is named for its resemblance to what?

A seashell is the model: the striped sugar topping mimics a shell's ridges, on a brioche-like dough that probably descends from recipes French bakers brought to Mexico.

A molinillo, found wherever Mexican hot chocolate is made, is what kind of tool?

A wooden whisk, turned from one piece with loose rings near the head, the molinillo is spun between the palms until the chocolate froths.

One popular legend traces the burrito to a street vendor and his donkey in which Mexican border city?

Ciudad Juárez is the legend's setting: vendor Juan Méndez is said to have carried food wrapped in flour tortillas on a donkey during the Revolution, but 'burrito' already appears in an 1895 dictionary of Mexican Spanish.

Oaxaca is famed as the land of how many moles?

Seven is the traditional count: negro, rojo, coloradito, amarillo, verde, chichilo and manchamanteles; the black one gets its colour from chiles toasted until they char.

Escamoles, a prized delicacy in Mexican cooking, are what?

Ant larvae and pupae of the Liometopum ant, dug from nests among agave roots, are the escamoles; they sit alongside chapulines and maguey worms in Mexico's long tradition of eating insects.

Chocolate's first documented arrival in Europe came in 1544, when Maya nobles presented it at which country's royal court?

Spain: Qʼeqchiʼ Maya nobles, brought over by Dominican friars, presented chocolate to Prince Philip in 1544; Spaniards then sweetened the bitter drink and served it warm, and it spread across Europe in the next century.

Which Oaxacan street food is a plate-sized toasted tortilla spread with beans, cheese and meat?

Tlayuda: the big tortilla is first smeared with asiento, the lard left from frying pork rinds, then loaded with beans, cheese and meats such as tasajo or chorizo.

The name refried beans mistranslates the Spanish refritos, which really describes beans cooked how?

Well fried, or intensely fried, is how chef Rick Bayless glosses refritos: the beans are boiled, mashed and reheated in the pan, never fried a second time.

Doritos were first made in the early 1960s at a Frito-Lay restaurant inside which theme park?

Disneyland's Casa de Fritos cut surplus tortillas into pieces, crisped and seasoned them, and by 1966 Doritos were the first tortilla chip sold across the United States.

In Mexico, the sweet fruit of the prickly pear cactus is sold under which name?

Tuna is the Spanish name for the prickly pear's fruit, which must be peeled carefully to get rid of its tiny spines and is often blended into aguas frescas.

Pico de gallo, the chopped fresh salsa of tomato, onion and chile, has a name meaning what?

Rooster's beak is the literal meaning, and one explanation heard in Sonora is that the serrano chile chopped into it is shaped like one.

Before the Spanish conquest, which crop's seeds served as money across Mesoamerica for small purchases?

Cacao beans were the small change of Mesoamerica, with a handful buying a tamale or a rabbit dinner long before Europeans had tasted chocolate.

Fajita, a Tex-Mex word meaning little strip or belt, originally referred to which cut of beef?

Skirt steak was one of the scrap cuts handed to vaqueros when cattle were slaughtered on Texas roundups, and they grilled it straight over the campfire.

The Sonoran hot dog, born in the Mexican city of Hermosillo, is wrapped in what before grilling?

Bacon is wound around the sausage, which is then tucked into a soft bolillo-style bun and buried under pinto beans, onions, tomatoes, mayonnaise and mustard.

Which bird, domesticated in ancient Mexico and often served under mole, did the Spanish take to Europe?

Turkey raised in central Mexico was shipped to Europe by the Spanish in the 1500s, and the main domestic varieties on farms worldwide descend from those birds.

Which compound, concentrated in a chile's white pith rather than its seeds, makes salsa burn?

Capsaicin is made in the pale tissue that holds the seeds, not in the seeds themselves, which only seem fiery because they sit right against it.

Chicharrón, eaten across Mexico in tacos and gorditas with green salsa, is made by deep-frying what?

Pork skin, seasoned and deep-fried until it puffs and crackles, is the classic chicharrón, although the same word also covers fried pork belly.

The huarache, an oblong base of fried corn dough, is named after which item of clothing?

A sandal is what the long oval resembled, so customers at the Mexico City stall where Carmen Gómez Medina first made it in the 1930s borrowed the footwear's name.

Which spicy stew was named the official state dish of Texas by its legislature?

Chili con carne took the title in 1977, and Texan purists are strict about it: the main cook-off society bars beans from every competition pot.

Legend says nuns invented Mexico's most famous mole for a visiting archbishop at a convent in which city?

Puebla gave mole poblano its name, and in the tale the panicked nuns ground together chiles, spices, nuts, day-old bread and a little chocolate.

The strips of dough laid across a loaf of pan de muerto for the Day of the Dead represent what?

Bones are what the strips depict, standing for the dead being honoured, and they are often arranged in a circle to suggest the cycle of life.

Tacos al pastor, carved from a spinning vertical spit, have a Spanish name meaning in the style of whom?

The shepherd, or herdsman, is the literal meaning: asado al pastor was an old Mexican name for meat skewered on a stake and roasted over an open fire.

Pepitas, toasted as a snack and ground into Mexican sauces such as pipián, are the seeds of which plant?

Pumpkin seeds take the name pepita from the Mexican Spanish pepita de calabaza, little seed of squash, and some varieties are bred to grow them without a hull.

The oversized, foil-wrapped Mission burrito takes its name from a district of which American city?

San Francisco's Mission District made the style popular in the 1960s: a large flour tortilla folded around a whole meal of fillings and handed over in aluminium foil.

The chimichanga, a deep-fried burrito, is thought to have been created by accident in which US state?

Arizona restaurants dispute the honour, the best-known tale being that Monica Flin of Tucson's El Charro Café dropped a burrito into the fryer in the early 1950s.

Which orchid-pod flavouring was first cultivated by the Totonac people of Mexico's Gulf coast?

Vanilla was a Totonac crop in what is now Veracruz, used as a temple fragrance and worn in good-luck amulets, until the conquering Aztecs developed a taste for it too.

Which religious community of northern Mexico first produced the cheese known elsewhere as queso Chihuahua?

Mennonites made it first, which is why people in Chihuahua and the neighbouring states call it queso menonita rather than by the state's name.

In the slow-roasted pork dish cochinita pibil, the word pib refers to which piece of cooking equipment?

An earth oven, a pit with a fire at the bottom, is where the marinated pork is buried to roast slowly, and a single one can feed up to forty people.

Which stone slab, worked with a hand stone called a mano, has ground maize in Mexico since before 3000 BC?

Metate grinding is a back-and-forth horizontal motion, unlike the up-and-down pounding of a mortar and pestle, and the work traditionally fell to women.

Which pungent Mexican herb is traditionally simmered with black beans to curb their gassy effect?

Epazote earns its place as much for an antiflatulent reputation as for its sharp taste, though its concentrated essential oil is toxic enough to have killed people.

Birria, the slow-cooked chile-red stew served with dipping tacos, comes from which Mexican state?

Jalisco used birria as its own regional word for pit-roasted meat, the cooking style that other parts of Mexico know as barbacoa.

Tacos de canasta, often sold from bicycles on Mexico City streets, are named after being kept warm in what?

A basket lined with paper, foil and plastic and covered with cloth keeps the tacos warm and humid, hence their other name, tacos sudados, or sweaty tacos.

Before it described a style of cooking, the word Tex-Mex was first used in the 1870s as shorthand for what?

A railway, the Texas Mexican Railway chartered in 1875, was the original TexMex, and the name is not known to have been applied to food in print until the 1960s.

Capirotada, a Mexican bread pudding soaked in syrup, is traditionally eaten in which religious season?

Lent is its season, above all Good Friday, and the dish carries symbols of the Passion: the bread for Christ's body, the cloves for the nails, the cinnamon sticks for the cross.

Alegría, a Mexican sweet whose name means joy, binds honey or sugar with the seeds of which ancient crop?

Amaranth was so bound up with Aztec ritual, pressed with honey into figures offered to the gods, that its cultivation was outlawed after the Spanish conquest.

Huachinango a la veracruzana, a classic dish of Mexico's Gulf coast, features which whole fish?

Red snapper is baked whole in a sauce of tomato, onions, garlic and olives, a Mediterranean accent that shows the Spanish hand in the cooking of Veracruz.

Manchamanteles, a Mexican stew of meat, chiles and fruit, has a name meaning what?

Tablecloth stainer is fair warning: the deep red, chile-based sauce is notorious for marking any linen it lands on.

Maize was domesticated in southern Mexico about 9,000 years ago from which wild grass?

Teosinte looks little like its descendant: its kernels drop off the plant on their own, while those of domesticated maize stay fixed to the cob.

Mexico's mazapán, sold as the candy De la Rosa, swaps the almonds of European marzipan for what?

Peanuts are ground into the paste, and this version is the most common marzipan in Mexico, while other Latin American countries turn to a range of different nuts.

The pastes of Mexico's Hidalgo state descend from pasties brought by 1820s miners from which English county?

Cornwall sent miners and builders to the mining towns of Real del Monte and Pachuca from 1824, and their pasties are filled with potato and beef or with mole and tinga.

Which British writer changed how Americans saw Mexican cooking with her book The Cuisines of Mexico?

Diana Kennedy wrote nine books on the subject, and the Mexican government honoured her with the Order of the Aztec Eagle.

Cilantro, scattered over Mexican tacos and salsas, is the fresh leaf of the plant that yields which spice?

Coriander is the very same plant: cilantro is simply the Spanish word for it, which American English borrowed for the fresh herb alone.

Ahuautle, a delicacy of the Aztec lakes nicknamed Mexican caviar, consists of the eggs of which creatures?

Water bugs lay the eggs on rushes that gatherers set out along the lakeshore, and the harvest is dried, roasted and often fried in egg-battered patties.

Chicle, the natural chewing-gum latex known to the Aztecs, is tapped from which tropical tree?

Sapodilla trunks are slashed with zig-zag gashes so the latex drips into small bags, much as rubber is tapped, and the Nahuatl root of the word chicle can be translated as sticky stuff.

Which Mexico City restaurant of chef Enrique Olvera is famed for a mole sauce aged for thousands of days?

Pujol serves its mole madre, a black mole reheated thousands of times and regularly fed with fresh sauce, with a layer of newly made mole poured over the aged one.

The margarita, thought to be a tequila remake of a brandy cocktail, takes the Spanish name of which flower?

Daisy was already the name of a family of cocktails built from a spirit, a liqueur and citrus, and a Tequila Daisy was being written up in American newspapers by 1936.

The Paloma, a tequila cocktail whose name is the Spanish word for dove, uses a soda of which fruit?

Grapefruit soda such as Squirt or Jarritos is the classic mixer, and one theory even traces the drink's name to pomelo, a Spanish word for the fruit, rather than to the bird.

Tepache, a fermented Mexican drink sweetened with piloncillo, is brewed from the rind of which fruit?

Pineapple rinds carry the wild yeast and bacteria that ferment tepache in a day or two, though its Nahuatl root named a drink made from raw maize.

Kahlúa, a rum-based liqueur made in the Mexican state of Veracruz since 1936, is flavoured with what?

Coffee, specifically arabica, is blended with rum and sugar, and the name Kahlúa means House of the Acolhua people in the Nahuatl of Veracruz.

Rompope, a liqueur said to have been first made in Mexican convents, resembles which festive drink?

Eggnog is its nearest relative: rompope blends eggs, milk and rum, and its name derives from rompon, the Spanish version of the drink that crossed to Mexico.

Café de olla, Mexico's traditional brew with cinnamon, owes its name and flavour to being made in what?

A clay pot is considered essential, because the earthenware lends the drink a special flavour that a metal pan cannot give.

Which class of tequila spends at least two months in oak but less than a year?

Reposado, meaning rested, sits between blanco and añejo, which must stay in the barrel for a year or more, and it may rest in casks as large as 20,000 litres.

The Mexican lager Dos Equis was first named to mark the arrival of what?

The twentieth century was on its way when German brewer Wilhelm Hasse launched his lager as Siglo XX, and the Roman numeral for 20 on the bottle became Dos Equis, two Xs.

Which Mexican lager, brewed by Grupo Modelo, is often served with a citrus wedge in the bottle neck?

Corona's wedge of lime or lemon is said to add tartness and flavour to a lager whose mash includes corn as well as the usual barley malt and hops.

Sangrita, the chaser customarily sipped beside a shot of tequila, has a name meaning little what?

Blood is the image because of the chaser's bright red colour, which traditionally came from fine chile powder, spices and pomegranate.

The bolillo roll, brought to Mexico City by Emperor Maximilian's cooks, is a shorter version of which loaf?

Baguette is the model, which is why the very same roll goes by pan francés, French bread, in Central America.

Aguachile, raw seafood steeped in lime juice and chiles, originated on the coast of which Mexican state?

Sinaloa's first versions were nothing more than boiled water and chiltepín, the small round chile of the region, which is how the dish got a name meaning chile water.