Mole

Mole
Some things conquer your imagination, not merely exacting tribute, but forcing you to evolve. Mexico, and the book we read in sixth grade, Mexico, Our Neighbors to the South, conquered me. I remember pictures of brightly colored serapes slung over the shoulders of men clad in loose-fitting white pants and sombreros, docile-eyed donkeys piled to the sky with firewood or clay pots, spiny cactus and vast, desolate land. I imagined the beautiful dark-haired, dark-eyed women stomping their feet and swirling their ribboned skirts in a spirited hat dance to music played on an accordion. Everything I read captivated me: the romantic legend of the volcanoes—Princess Ixtaccihuatl and her warrior lover, Popocapetl; the bloody Aztecs tearing out human hearts to ensure the sun’s rise each morning; the ranchos and vaqueros (cowboys); even the food— I could almost smell the tortillas warming on the griddle—and a strange dark sauce made out of chocolate called mole. I vowed someday to visit my “neighbors to the South” and know of all these wonders.

Kirby, my college boyfriend, and I, driving a beat-up green truck through the middle of nowhere, were thirsty and gritty. It was at a dusty roadside restaurant in the afternoon of my first trip to Mexico, when I tasted the celebrated sauce—mole. I remember the land was flat and shimmering in the July sun. The heat radiated in waves off the pavement of the narrow highway and the vegetation looked parched and tired—anxious for winter. Ahead, rising out of a distant mirage, loomed a faded turquoise structure with a weathered sign in front: Loncheria Carta Blanca. We were saved.

The single open door led into a cool, dim interior. As our eyes adjusted, we saw rows of metal tables in a quantity to seat scores of luncheon guests, each with four red folding chairs painted with Coca Cola advertisements. But other than a couple of fat red hens roosting near the kitchen door, we were the only patrons.

A small, wiry man dressed in the color of dust brought us a menu and offered a toothless smile. “The chicken mole is delicious today,” he informed us in Spanish.

I asked for a coke, being easily influenced by advertising, and Kirby asked for a Superior. The icy drinks cooled us after our long hot drive from Guymas and we were ready to order. Remembering the mystical and ancient dish made with meat and chocolate, I ordered the mole.

Two cokes later, my plate arrived. On it there was a chicken leg drowning in what looked like a puddle of runny chocolate pudding. The chicken’s skin curled up off the bone as though gasping for breath; the meat drifted away in strings. It was thick, sweet, viscous.

“How can anybody eat this stuff?” I complained to Kirby as I pushed the plate away. “It’s disgusting. Too much chocolate.” This from a confirmed chocoholic.

Instead, we enjoyed his huge plate of enchiladas verdes, frijoles refritos, arroz mexicano, and plenty of hot home-made tortillas while that poor chicken leg foundered in the chocolate mud and, later, vanished back into the kitchen’s maw with the dusty waiter and the disapproving clucks of the hens.

Two decades slipped by. Throughout that time I visited Mexico often, and told my chicken mole story at every opportunity, including that first day at the Spanish language institute in Oaxaca. The school offered an intensive month-long course in Spanish and Mexican culture. As part of the curriculum, we had the choice of weaving classes, pottery making, or cooking lessons—all in Spanish. Every day I cooked wonderful dishes like chili rellenos, gorditas, tamales and enchiladas.

On the first day, Doña Carmen, our instructor, marched us cocineros (cooks) off to the central market to learn about buying food. I was familiar with Mexican markets since I’d been traveling for two months and prepared most of my meals over my camp stove, but I was unprepared for this. Mole was everywhere.
There were vats of mole, tubs of mole, mountains of mole. Mole verde, mole rojo, the famed Oaxacan mole negro, and mole of every color in between. Each puesto (stall) crowded into the huge market building was brimming with displays of mole. Mole—spicy, fresh, and chocolaty—pervaded the air with its rich fragrance. It blended with the meat smells of the butchers’ corridor, mingled with the sweet, ripe smells of fruit and the pungent herbaceous odors of vegetables in the greengrocers’ section. The scent of hot bread and tortillas baking tangled with the mole—a palatable smell. Our every breath was wrapped in mole. It settled over the household goods and wafted through the clothing aisles, spilling out the many doorways, down the narrow sidewalks, and into the dusty exhaust-choked streets of the city. “!Que rico!” was the only way to describe it. Thinking back to Loncheria Carta Blanca and the indignant hens clucking over my uneaten lunch, I wondered how these brown blobs could produce such celestial perfume.

Everyday we lunched at sidewalk cafes in the dappled shade of ancient trees towering over the Zócalo (plaza) amid a carnival of pigeons, tourists, and vendors hawking their crafts, “ Ropa Típica, cheap today!” There were dolls, mythical beasts carved from wood and painted in psychedelic colors, mescal in coke bottles, tiny green- ware pottery strung on hemp fiber, brightly woven belts, serapes, or blouses with intricate embroidery. There were shouts and laughter, honks, and the hum of scores of voices. Waiters carrying tempting plates of food and trailing rich aromas passed between the hodge podge of tables, chairs, potted plants, awnings, and umbrellas that defined the dining areas. I tried every dish on every menu—except mole.

One day in class, Doña arrived armed with ingredients to prepare Mole Amarillo, a main course stew. Rich and yellowish, it had big chunks of chicken, potatoes, and chayote. It was not brown, not sticky, not bubbling like the stinky mud-pots that fascinated me on a trip to see volcanoes. It didn’t contain chocolate, and it was called mole. I loved it.

“Perhaps,” I commented to my classmate, Jacquie, “I could be persuaded to try another color of mole.”

On the third Saturday, some of the cocineros visited the giant Mercado Abasto on the northwest side of town. Tiny shriveled indigenous ladies in colorful costumes sat on wooden fruit crates in the wide corridors, selling mounds of dead grasshoppers displayed on vinyl cloths printed with gaudy fruits and flowers. A peso bought a heaping sardine tin of the dried chapulines. In a moment of lunacy I ate one, to the delight of all, especially the little toothless vendors who grinned and nodded and jabbered all at once in a strange tongue. The grasshopper was quite tasty—crispy and slightly sweet but with a hot and tangy bite. Except that it was a bug. It looked like a bug, and it felt like a bug in my mouth. The sound was the same crunch of insects trapped underfoot in the dry grass of summer camp.

“Okay,” I argued with myself, “if I can eat a bug, I can eat brown paste.”

In class I began to pester Doña Carmen for a promise to demonstrate mole, but her reply was the always the same.

“Oh, mole! It takes too long to make. It’s really difficult,” And shrugging, as though it were all in the hands of Heaven, she spread out the ingredients for picante salsas, sweet atole, but no mole.

On our last day of class, Doña Carmen greeted us in the kitchen at four o’clock as we straggled in from our soon-to-be-missed lunches on the plaza. By the end of the course, our group had dwindled to only five—three other cooks and I, and one “sampler,” my companion, Hal.

The long wooden table that filled our narrow kitchen was laden with tomatoes, plantains, sesame seeds, raisins, four kinds of dried chilis, almonds, oil and thin patties of the crumbly soft Oaxacan chocolate. The same chocolate we bought in the Zócalo wrapped in pink paper and nibbled over our endless grammar exercises. Doña announced that we were going to make mole negro—the quick way.

She instructed us to select only the finest of the fruits and vegetables from the array covering the old table whose wooden surface was burnished to a rich sheen through decades of use. Tom and I had to sift the plumpest out of the half-kilo of sesame seeds while Jacquie ground the almonds to a paste in the molcajete (mortar). Only the reddest tomatoes were good enough to roast and peel; the plantains could not be bruised; the raisins needed to be juicy. Linda was chastised when she blackened the chipotle chilis on the comal and had to start over.

Finally, the chicken was braised moist and tender. The mole ingredients were ground to paste and simmered with broth to a velvety smooth sauce. When the mole was thick, but not too thick, we added just enough of the chocolate to deepen the flavor, adding a rich complexity. A divine aroma took over our tiled kitchen with its old fashioned iron cook top and open shelving. It was only moments until the mole was ready to adorn the chicken pieces now resting in a painted clay serving dish. Someone fluffed the rice in it’s matching clay bowl and set the table.

We were ready to feast. And feast we did! Mescal was passed ‘round, “To mole! Buen Provecho!” we chorused, and then we dug in.

We ate and ate and we ate some more. The kitchen was silent but for the clack of silverware on clay plates and the smacking of lips. We stuffed ourselves, but it was as if the platter had escaped from the fairy tales I read as a kid—it couldn’t be emptied.

We invited the weavers, the potters, and the guitar teacher. We invited the director and the other teachers, and we all ate.
At last the feast was gone. Hal and I were cleaning up and I found myself licking the mole pot. So this was mole—indescribably delicious and just like they claimed in my sixth grade book—food for the Gods!

My love affair with mole had begun. Ah, mole!

Over the two years I lived in Mexico, I sampled mole in every restaurant, cafe, and market stall between Tijuana and Chetumal. Mole became my grail; rich and steaming over rice or vegetables, in a tortilla, or cooked in tamales. I ate the famous turkey mole from Puebla and mole with chicken in a tiny restaurant at Popocapetl’s feet. I ate mole in the morning and mole for lunch.

But, even today, my favorite: red mole from the molino (mill) in Tepoztlán served at night over scrambled eggs with plenty of piping hot tortillas.

¡Que rico!

Mexico has conquered me again.