international cuisine

Mexico

Long and narrow, Mexico forms what looks like a curved horn between the United States to the north and Guatemala and Belize to the south.

• To the west is the Pacific Ocean. The Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean Sea lie to the east.
• Two huge mountain ranges, the Sierra Madre Occidental to the west, and the Sierra Madre Oriental to the east, run the length of the country, forming a giant V. Between these mountain ranges lie a series of plateaus. The plateau in the north is largely desert land, while the long central plateau father south is more fertile.
• Near the tip of the horn, the Yucatan Peninsula juts into the Atlantic Ocean.
• A long, narrow peninsula called Baja dangles from California’s southern border.

The southern coasts are home to tropical rain forests and jungles. With most of its eastern and western borders being on the coast, some Mexican cuisine is based on seafood. There are good grazing areas in the north, with some fertile agricultural land to the south; however, between arid conditions and challenging terrain, only 12 percent of the country gets enough rain for crops.

South America

South America, the fourth largest continent, contains the world’s highest waterfall, Angel Falls; the largest river (by volume), the Amazon River; the longest mountain range, the Andes; the driest desert, Atacama; the largest rain forest, the Amazon rain forest; the highest capital city, La Paz, Bolivia; and the world’s southernmost city, Ushuaia, Argentina.

In the high reaches of the Andes Mountains, along the border between Bolivia and Peru, lies one of the highest regions inhabited by people anywhere in the world. Here in the altiplano farmers raise sheep, llamas, and alpacas, as they have for thousands of years. But unlike most farmlands, the altiplano is surrounded by jagged mountains, volcanic peaks that drop steeply down to deserts in some places, to rain forests in others, and on the western side, to the deep trench of the Pacific Ocean. South America is home to some of the planet’s largest volcanoes, and in the far south along the coast of Chile, large ice sheets are commonplace.

The Amazon River Basin is roughly the size of the forty-eight contiguous United States and covers some 40 percent of the South American continent. Reflecting environmental conditions as well as past human influence, the Amazon is made up of ecosystems and vegetation types that include rain forests, seasonal forests, deciduous forests, flooded forests, and savannas.

The Eastern Highlands of South America belong to the older geologic period (almost of the same time as that of North America’s Appalachian Mountains). The northern section of the Eastern Highlands is known as Guiana Highlands, which consists of a vast plateau marked by deep gorges and tropical rain forests, and is home to Angel Falls. The southern section is known as the Brazilian Highlands and includes several mountain ranges.

Venezuela’s rugged Llanos are one of the world’s richest tropical grasslands. This large, very fertile plain is located in central and southern Venezuela and eastern and central Colombia. It is drained by the Orinoco River and its many tributaries. This mostly flat, grassy country is teeming with wildlife, including more than 100 species of mammals and over 300 species of birds. Here, a catfish known as the lau-lau weighs up to 330 pounds and is considered a culinary delicacy.

Pampas is a word of Quechua origin that means “a plain without trees.” This flat land is Argentina’s agricultural heartland, home of the gaucho (cowboy) and is famed for its many cattle ranches.

Patagonia is the area between the Andes Mountains and the Atlantic Ocean. It stretches south from the Rio Negro River in southern Argentina to Tierra del Fuego and the Strait of Magellan and is one of the less populated regions in the world. Its mostly rugged, barren land is not suitable for extensive farming, but is compatible with sheep raising.

Caribbean

The West Indian archipelago forms a massive breakwater 2,000 miles long consisting of thousands of islands and reefs that protect the Caribbean Sea against the Atlantic Ocean. This barrier provides the Caribbean its calm and clear waters.

This area is known by a variety of names. The earliest name, and the one most frequently used, is West Indies. Christopher Columbus gave the region that name erroneously when he arrived in 1492. He thought that he had circumnavigated the earth and that the islands were off the coast of India. Spain and France called the islands the Antilles, after the mythological Atlantic island of Antilia.

The larger islands (Cuba, Jamaica, Hispaniola, and Puerto Rico) came to be known as the Greater Antilles, while the remaining smaller islands were called the Lesser Antilles.

Today the area is broken into four island chains: the Bahamas, the Greater Antilles, and the eastern and southern islands of the Lesser Antilles. Together, these islands cover more than 91,000 square miles of land area.

The main island of Cuba covers 40,543 square miles. Much of the landmass of the Greater Antilles is formed by a partially submerged mountain range, which forms the Sierra Maestras and Sierra de Nipe on Cuba, the Blue Mountains on Jamaica, the Cordillera Central on Hispaniola, and the mountainous core of Puerto Rico farther to the east. The western three-fourths of the island is a vast limestone platform similar to the limestone platforms of Florida and Mexico’s Yucat´an Peninsula.

The third island chain includes the eastern islands of the Lesser Antilles, which curve north from the coast of Venezuela toward Puerto Rico. The islands along this arc fall into two distinct geographic groups. Some islands formed as a result of volcanic activity, while others emerged from the ocean as low-lying coral islands. Saint Vincent, Saint Lucia, Martinique, Dominica, the western half of Guadeloupe, Montserrat, Nevis, Saint Kitts, and the Virgin Islands are mountainous with rims of coastal plain. There are many active volcanoes in the West Indies, including Montagne Pelee on Martinique and Soufriere on Saint Vincent. The Soufriere Hills volcano on Montserrat erupted during the mid-1990s, destroying the island’s capital of Plymouth. The islands of Barbados, Antigua, Barbuda, Anguilla, and the eastern half of Guadeloupe generally have low elevations and more level terrain.

The fourth island chain, the southern islands of the Lesser Antilles, follows the coast of Venezuela, from Lake Maracaibo to the mouth of the Orinoco River. These islands are extreme northeastern extensions of the Andes Mountains and have complex geologic structures. They include Aruba, Bonaire, Curacao, Margarita, and Trinidad and Tobago. One of the smallest inhabited islands is Saba, part of the Netherlands Antilles. A volcanic cone, Saba towers 2,854 feet above the ocean. Its capital, the Bottom, is built at the bottom of the extinct crater—the only patch of level land on the island. Many smaller uninhabited coral islets are found in the region.

Korea

Korea is a rugged peninsula lying between China on the west and north and Japan to the east. It shares a very small border with Russia to the extreme northeast. Korea is surrounded by water on three sides: the Korea Bay and the Yellow Sea to the west, the Korea Strait to the south, and the East Sea (also known as the Sea of Japan) to the east.

There are more than 3,400 islands along the coast. Mountains and hills make up about 70 percent of the country. The Korean peninsula is divided by two political states: the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (North Korea) and the Republic of Korea (South Korea).

Japan

To the west and south of the peninsula are broad coastal plains where the larger cities are located and where most of the agricultural land is found. With a combined population of nearly 72 million Koreans, in a country the size of Great Britain or New Zealand, the land is well used. The land gently slopes from the south and western coastal plains toward the mountains and drops steeply from the mountains to the East Sea.

Japan is a small nation of more than 3,000 scattered islands off the eastern coast of mainland Asia. The Japanese call it Nippon, which means “source of the sun”; others call it “Land of the Rising Sun.” It is an archipelago, or chain of islands, including four major islands—Hokkaido, Honshu, Shikoku, and Kyusha—and thousands of smaller ones that lie scattered along a southwest to northeast axis of nearly 3,000 miles. Historically, its location isolated the country from the rest of the world. Considering the country’s physical geography, its history, and its huge population, Japan has had to overcome many obstacles to achieve its present-day place among major world nations.

Japan is located in a region of geologic instability known as the Pacific Ring of Fire. This region includes approximately 100 active volcanoes and as a result it averages about 1,500 earthquakes each year. Japan is also subject to floods, blizzards, and typhoons that sweep over the islands each year. And volcanic events occurring on the ocean floor can cause devastating tsunamis. Although no longer active, the most recognized of Japan’s volcanoes is Mount Fuji. This cone-shaped peak rises 12,388 feet above the Kanto Plain, about 70 miles southwest of Tokyo.

The small valleys of flat land and narrow coastal plains support much of Japan’s population and economy. Japan’s population is over 127 million people, all of whom occupy an area slightly smaller than the state of California.