To many Mexicans, mole (pronounced mo-lay) shows their national cuisine at its finest and most complex.
The Spanish word "mole" comes from "molli", which means "sauce" in Nahuatl, the language of the Aztecs still spoken by present-day central Mexicans. The Spanish term is sometimes used to refer to sauce generically but it also refers to a family of Mexican dishes that share similarities but show significant regional variations. Recipes for these dishes may include more than 50 ingredients and take a day to create from scratch, beginning with the process of roasting and grinding fresh spices. The ingredients are blended in order, slowly, and poured over cooked meat, most popularly turkey, but also chicken or pork.
"Mole is the highest point of Mexican cuisine and it's one of the mother sauces of the world," says Martha Ortiz, chef of the award-winning Dulce Patria restaurant in Mexico City's chic Polanco district. "All moles are like a seduction: some moles include more than 50 ingredients - having so many tastes in your mouth is like having a lover. If I had to choose a kiss from a man or a spoonful of mole, I would choose the mole."
But while Ortiz, now on her second husband, sees mole as a sensuous dish, one legend has it that its origins are far more prosaic. In this story, the dish was created in the colonial period by the nuns of the Convent of Santa Rosa in Puebla, near Mexico City. The nuns, having been given short notice of the upcoming visit of the archbishop, put together the ingredients they had to hand at their simple convent to create a dish for their esteemed guest. They added chilli peppers to pieces of old bread, chocolate, spices and nuts, and poured the sauce over a turkey they had roasted. The archbishop loved the dish, and the nuns have cooked and refined the sauce ever since.
Ortiz says that even if this story is true, and she hopes it is, it does not detract from the sensuality of the dish: "My own personal reflection on the story is that the libido has to come out in some way, and if nuns created and recreated the dish, maybe this is why mole is so full of voluptuousness and passion."
Mole is an icon of Mexican cuisine not only because of its complexity of flavour and difficulty of preparation, but also because it blends the indigenous (ingredients such as the chilli and cacao, from which the Mayans created chocolate) with the European (the Spanish imported spices such as cinnamon, coriander and black pepper into Mexico from the 1520s).
Many regions in Mexico have their own moles that incorporate local ingredients and please local palates, but all moles contain chillies, with the most common being mulato, ancho, pasillo and chipotle (smoke-dried jalapenos).