Mole: Signature Dish of Mexico

One advantage of living in Texas is that there are many wonderful Mexican restaurants! Polvos is one of my favorites. They advertise their food as interior Mexican cuisine, and they have a fabulous salsa bar. The regular salsas that they offer are:

Tomatillo              Chipotle
Poblana                Mole,
Roja,                    Ranchera,
Carne Guisada     Chile con Queso, and
Ahumada.

The picture shows mole in the front, tomatillo directly behind the mole, and roja on the right. Next to the mole is escabeche or pickled vegetables.

Pollo also offers "exotic salsa" which I have never tasted. They are called Huasteca, Margarita, Cartuja, Veracrusqna, Pipian, and Caliente.
  

I ordered a combination plate, and as you can see, the enchilada is smothered with chocolate-y mole sauce. The soft taco on the right is filled with chicken fajita meat.

Mole is quintessentially Mexican. Its origin is debated.  Some have suggested that it came from the Aztecs in pre-Columbian times, but since chocolate is part of Aztec religious traditions others have doubted this explanation.

Others suggest that it originated with Nuns who were trying to impress someone. Whatever the origin, mole is a work of culinary art! Each family has added their own touches to their mole sauce, so there are many different versions. Some moles have up to 30 ingredients. Many people add multiple types of chiles to mole    to get the exact blend they want.

Traditionally, making mole was time consuming and tedious. Women would gather together to share the work as well as stories to make the work pass by more quickly. I was a wonderful social occasion. Now, you can buy mole in jars and just add some special touches to it, and many modern Mexican women cannot spend an entire day making a sauce. However the tradition of mole persists. The states of Oaxaca and Puebla are especially famous for wonderful moles.

There is a wonderful YouTube video of women making mole that you should watch. It shows Oaxacan women making mole in the traditional way. You can also find out about the history of chocolate. 

Diana Kennedy is a famous writer about Mexican cooking. Her mole recipe contains over 20 different ingredients.