A dark, complex sauce from Puebla, Mexico built from dried chili peppers, spices, ground nuts or seeds and a small amount of chocolate, traditionally simmered for hours and served over turkey or chicken. Convent kitchens in colonial Puebla are widely credited with its development, blending indigenous Mesoamerican chili and cacao cookery with ingredients introduced under Spanish rule, though, as with many dishes claimed by a specific kitchen, the exact originating convent is disputed among several candidates.
Facts
Open Questions
Origin Period, From (Year)Sourced to the subject's own accountThe convent-legend origin is dated by the source only as early in the colonial period, with no year given. Colonial Mexico began in 1521 (fall of Tenochtitlan); this year opens a representative bracket for early in that period, not a documented event on this exact year. This is a legend of the dish's creation, per the source's own framing as a common legend, not a verified historical event. Origin Period, To (Year)Sourced to the subject's own accountCloses the same early-colonial-period bracket the origin-start-year fact opens at 1521; 1620 is a representative round year for the end of the first century of Mexican colonial rule, standing in for the source's own vague early in the colonial period, not a documented event on this exact year. Disputed
Origin RegionPuebla, Mexico (Oaxaca also claims origin) 1 Sourced to the subject's own accountTwo Mexican states both claim to be the true origin of mole, per the cited source; the claim is contested, not settled. Connections
Associated With
Expresses Tradition
Source Larousse Gastronomique
Source Larousse Gastronomique
In Cuisine
Source The Oxford Companion to FoodAlan Davidson
Open Questions
Source Mole Poblano (Wikipedia)
Uses Ingredient
Source The Oxford Companion to FoodAlan Davidson
Source The Oxford Companion to FoodAlan Davidson
Sources
1. Mole Poblano (Wikipedia)
WikipediaHistory
Upon hearing that the archbishop was going to visit, the convent nuns panicked because they were poor and had almost nothing to prepare.
Wikipedia body text, Puebla/Oaxaca origin-claim sentence
Two states in Mexico claim to be the origin of mole: Puebla and Oaxaca.
Wikipedia body text, Convent of Santa Clara legend sentence
A common legend of its creation takes place at the Convent of Santa Clara in Puebla early in the colonial period.
View the Source The Oxford Companion to Food
Alan Davidson, Oxford University Press, 2014
Larousse Gastronomique
Hamlyn, 2009- Expresses Tradition: Nixtamalization, s.v. Mole Poblano
- Expresses Tradition: Cacao Fermentation and Chocolate Making, s.v. Mole Poblano
Open Questions (1 open question)
Which Puebla convent, nun or friar first prepared mole poblano?
Several colonial-era convent-kitchen legends compete for credit, naming different convents, nuns, friars and even different visiting dignitaries (an archbishop in some versions, the viceroy Juan de Palafox y Mendoza in others); food historians hold there is not enough evidence to prefer one account over the others.
What would resolve this A contemporary 17th- or 18th-century convent record or eyewitness account naming one specific convent, nun or friar as the dish's inventor, rather than the anecdotal accounts collected long after the fact, would settle which legend, if any, is accurate.
Culinary history / colonial Mexican archival researchMole Poblano (Wikipedia)
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