For Christopher Columbus' mariners it should've been a pleasure to get to a continent with everything different. All the cuisine elements of The Americas were extremely strange to those Conquistadors. Some books say they liked the fruits, especially their drinks made of corn (maize or maíz), like atole.

From their first journey into Mexico, the Europeans took back to Spain many of the original products and seeds, they planted and used them back home. That was the real clash of civilizations, perhaps more of an encounter of two worlds. But it was more than that, it was a journey into nourishment that changed the history of Mexico.

More than 500 years later, there's no complete culinary knowledge or absolute integration. Europe accepted very quickly the products they collected from Mexico cities along their journey. As a matter of fact, they incorporated tomatoes into their cuisine, which is now the basis, for example, for Italian food.

Tomatoes were not the only one ingredient that Spaniards introduced into their nutrition. They found many other things like: sweet potatoes, yuca or yucca, maize, beans, and peanuts. Many others are still to be approved by the world's gastronomy like: chia, amaranto (amaranth), zapotes, etc.