Not Your Typical Mexican Food

On our walking tour of Oaxaca, we met a fantastic collection of people and we all met up for dinner that evening. Tommy, a brilliantly funny scouser ordered a famous Oaxacan dish, mole with turkey. It arrived at the table and he exclaimed:

“Where’s me mole?!”

“It’s right there.”

“Nah, that’s just turkey. I hate turkey, it’s the worst part of Christmas dinner.”

“It’s the sauce.”

“You what?! There’s a mole in the sauce! It’s like…mole juice?!”

“No, it’s not mole, it’s pronounced molay.”

“Mole, molay, whatever. Everyone told me that I need to try the mole when I go to Mexico and I’ve tried to order mole and they’ve just given me bloody turkey.”

Dying laughing we tried to explain through the tears that mole is just the name of a type of Mexican sauce and not a small, furry animal with poor eyesight and a propensity for digging holes. He was gutted, he really wanted to try a mole.

The most famous and popular mole of all is mole negro (black mole) which is made with dark chocolate and served with meat. As famous and popular as it is, I utterly detest it. Originally I thought that mole negro was the one and only mole and felt like an uncultured swine for not liking it.

Luckily for me, when we showed up for our Oaxacan cooking course, we were given a choice of moles to cook. We made two glorious mole sauces and I am now a mole convert.

The first was an almond mole served with chicken and the second was a caper mole served with fish, which was particularly divine and also made me a caper convert.

Oaxaca is well known as a culinary hot spot, with a unique cuisine quite different from the rest of Mexico. It has Zapotec origins and as avid foodies, we were eager to learn about the history, local ingredients, and the culture surrounding the dishes. But most of all to experience new smells, textures, and flavours.

We tentatively entered a walled garden with a long wooden dining table at its centre. As a group, we discussed exactly what dishes we wanted to prepare. I’ve never been given so many options before, it was an endless list of soups, salsas, and of course moles.

Our course began as many do with a trip to the local market, playing pass the parcel with local ingredients and giving them each a good sniff.

We learned that lemons were only introduced to Mexico about five years ago and that in Mexican Spanish, limes are referred to as limon (lemon). Which made all my embarrassing attempts at ordering a lime with my beer suddenly make sense. I’d been using the Spanish word for lime, lima and the servers would look at me as if I had two heads. I asked, what do they call lemons? Limon amarillo (lemon yellow). I laughed.

Back in the kitchen, adorned in denim aprons we stood awkwardly around the counter waiting to be selected to demonstrate. Both wanting and not wanting to be picked. Then being suitably both delighted and embarrassed in equal measures we chopped, blended, and stirred.

We found out just how much blenders were a revolution in Mexican cooking, pretty much everything is blended. Before that, it would have taken hours and hours at a molcajete, a stone table and matching rolling pin, a kind of large-scale pestle and mortar. If you really want to show someone that you love them, then you cook for them in this traditional way as it takes time and care.

Finally, we gathered at the table to enjoy the fruits of our labour. It felt as if we were eating at a restaurant rather than eating things that we had helped prepare. My personal favourites were the avocado soup, caper mole with fish, stuffed poblano peppers, chili-peanut salsa, and pineapple salsa. We finished it off with chocolate and avocado ice cream.

The drinks and the conversation were flowing, topics ranged from the politics of the Dutch Monarchy, America’s relationship with Cuba, and just how many cups of tea do the Brits really drink? (If the rest are anything like me, it’s a lot!) These are the joys of sitting down to dinner with a wide range of nationalities and I felt like I could stay and talk all day long.

All in all, if you ever get the chance to try the mole in Mexico, please do, I promise you it isn’t furry and it doesn’t bite.

Thank you for reading! Hearts and tips are always welcome and your support is very much appreciated.

This story was originally published on Medium

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