“Seven are your burning fires, seven your desires…”

Mole is one of those countless thousands of things that Americans have managed to oversimplify as it seeped its way into our mutt-like culture. I use the term “oversimplify” in the most generous way possible since what I truly mean is that we’ve assigned it whatever the hell definition we feel like, and have begun to accept that bastardization as mantra. Mole is not merely “that dark Mexican sauce with chocolate in it” any more than gumbo is “that Creole soup with cayenne in it,” but no one on Food Network will bother correcting the misnomer because if it can’t be done in 30 minutes or less it’s not worthwhile. Food pundits have wound themselves so tightly around Western Europe that half the information they spew out about Mexican or Latin American cuisine is dead wrong. Then, like a chain email gone horribly awry, their huge, Stepford-wife-like audiences take that disinformation and make it the de facto. Ah, America.

The most popular Mexican moles (some tell you it’s derived from an Aztec word meaning “sauce” and others will tell you it comes from the Spanish term moler meaning “to grind”) hail from either Oaxaca or Puebla. In fact, Oaxaca has inaccurately (what else is new) been dubbed the “Land of the Seven Moles.” Supposedly the seven moles that originated in Oaxaca are mole negro, mole colorado (or rojo), mole coloradito, mole amarillo, mole verde, chíchilo negro and manchamanteles. But others include mole nogada, mole Istmo and mole de Cacahuate. Mole Poblano, which is actually the most commonly seen here in the US, hails from Puebla, not Oaxaca.

As to its origin, there are of course several legends. The most widely accepted has a nun from the Convent of Santa Rosa in Puebla, creating it for a visiting archbishop sometime during the 1600s. Another version involves friar Pascual, who supposedly was angry with the nuns for being messy as they cooked for the archbishop. He gathered up all the spices, put them together on a tray, and then a sudden gust of wind swept across the kitchen and the spices all spilled into the cazuelas. Don’t laugh…it’s more plausible than a fat guy getting down a chimney to dole out gifts.

Here’s what I find interesting, though. The idea of using chocolate as a flavoring in cooked food would have been horrifying to the Aztecs. It was sacred, and would have been met with about as much approval as Christians trying to use communion wine to make coq au vin. Yet, today many consider pavo en mole poblano, which contains chocolate, to represent the pinnacle of the Mexican cooking tradition. The dish and its sauce, you see, originated in Puebla, which, unlike other cities in central Mexico, has no Aztec foundations!

The key aspect of any great mole’s complexity is the methodology—the searing, the cooking time, the quality of your ingredients, etc. And although chocolate is definitely an ingredient in some moles, if cooked properly, only a mysterious hint remains when the sauce is served over the entree. Mole negro usually uses six kinds of chile (the only ingredient all moles have in common), and may or may not contain almonds, raisins, pumpkin seeds, sesame seeds, tomato, garlic, onions, plantains, thyme, chocolate, canela (true cinnamon), chile seeds, chicken stock, and/or lard.

But what I love most about the artistry of mole is how it keeps your senses honed and demands your complete attention. If you want to put something on the stove or in the oven and be able to give your focus to something other than food, go make some short ribs and forget the mole, because it’s about submission…about blowing off everything else. It will ask you to do things like bring all the ingredients to the edge of being burned—without burning them. It’s a fine line that can’t be crossed, and to be honest, we don’t usually know where that line is until we’ve accidentally crossed it once or twice, which inevitably means that you will screw up your mole until you learn to listen, watch and smell the edge. Only then will you master it. Or maybe it’s a matter of it mastering you.

Tagged as: Mexican cooking, mole negro, mole poblano, oaxaca, puebla