What Tinga means
Tinga is a Mexican main dish name of Spanish origin meaning "shredded meat in chile and tomato". It comes from tinga (source undetermined). It is pronounced TEEN-gah, and it is most associated with Puebla.
Etymology uncertain. Popular sources derive it from a Nahuatl word for something shredded or messy but disagree on the form, and none of the proposed words is attested. The dish appears in print in the 1881 cookbook La cocinera poblana.
About this origin. The etymology is uncertain, disputed, or the name is a modern brand rather than an old word. The reading above is the best-supported one; food writing repeats stories that the dictionaries do not confirm.
This is a site about what Mexican words mean, so there is no recipe here. For the name itself: The plated dishes, most named for a cooking method or a place. Cochinita pibil is pork cooked in a píib, the Maya earth oven. Barbacoa gave English the word barbecue. Chiles en nogada is named for the walnut sauce that covers it.
