Mole brings LA families and cultures together

There’s probably no Mexican dish more gorgeous and historically rich than mole (pronounced “mo-lay”). The dish looks like muddy gravy but packs a scrumptious array of flavors.

It’s a complex paste of miscellaneous earthy ingredients that takes a day to make. Rich in flavor and folklore, mole is a complicated dish because of the sheer amount of ingredients mixed in; the average mole requires about 30 different ingredients.

These ingredients are first ground and mixed before meticulously stirred and cooked over low heat for hours. Finally, the product is painstakingly strained into a velvety smooth sauce.

Mole, taking its name from “molli,” a Nahuatl word that means “mixture” or “concoction,” is more than just a sauce. It is the most beloved national culinary figure of “mestizaje” — the cross-cultural blend of Old World and New World influences that combines indigenous and foreign ingredients with ancient techniques.

Mole is serious business. To get the flavor profile right, the cook must have an acute understanding of the characteristics of different chiles, which form the base of all moles. No ingredient is extraneous; each is chosen for its unique qualities.

The dish is so celebrated in Mexican culture that the annual Feria del Moles (Mole Festival) is thrown at a village in San Pedro Atocpan in Mexico City. This communal feast draws food aficionados from all over the world; hungry attendees crowd around stands that dole out samples of moles and watch jubilant musical and dance performances.

The festivities have spread to Los Angeles, where the fourth annual mole cook-off was held in October. The event took place on Downtown’s Olvera Street and featured a battle between Oaxacan and Pueblan moles. La Sandia at Santa Monica Place is extending the festivities indoors with its special mole-tasting menu.

Though a contemporary Mexican restaurant, La Sandia’s mole stays true to tradition. The temporary menu is a collaboration between Richard Sandoval and Mexican culinary ambassador Ana Luis Almazan, designed to showcase all the best classics: mole negro, mole poblano, mole almendrado (mellow-spiced with almonds and cinnamon), mole rojo (reddish sauce made piquant with dried red chiles) and mole pipian (vibrant-green, medium-spiced thin sauce).

The mole menu at La Sandia ends Nov. 19, but cheap dining options for decent mole are available year round in Los Angeles, the city with the highest population of Mexicans outside of Mexico.

The Mexican states of Oaxaca and Puebla are most famous for their moles. If you hop over to Eighth Street in Koreatown, you’ll find Sabores Oaxaqueños, a Oaxacan restaurant distinguished by a garish pink sign.

Oaxaca is known as “Land of the Seven Moles,” and you’ll find most of them at Sabores Oaxaqueños, served in different forms. To learn the true taste of mole, order the bittersweet, charcoal-dark mole negro served over a whole chicken leg or pork.

You can also get mole negro mixed with shredded chicken and stuffed into a plump, tender tamale steamed in a fragrant banana leaf. Or try tlayuda, the black paste on a Oaxacan-style pizza spread on a thin, crispy tortilla and topped with creamy, stringy Oaxacan cheese.

Though some versions of mole are famous for their inclusion of chocolate, not all moles are chocolate-y. Some renditions of the dish, such as mole negro, add just a small slab of bitter Mexican chocolate into the stirring pot during the final stages of cooking.

The other popular mole with chocolate is mole poblano from Puebla, an amber-brown swirl of nutty, spicy and bitter flavors typically served over turkey. It’s the chocolate that makes mole a cross-cultural dish, as cooking chocolate into a common dish would have been scandalous to native Mexicans before the Spaniards arrived.

But mole can range from thick and dark to light and bright-colored. Each kitchen has its own preference for ingredient ratios, which makes mole all the more mysterious and fascinating.

Moles la Tia is a quaint East Los Angeles-based restaurant specializing in traditional and creative moles. Other than the classics, Moles la Tia also conjures up unique concoctions, such as tangy hibiscus, beets and red wine mole, sexy passion fruit mole and even coffee mole for a jolt of savory caffeine.

Bring a friend along and split the cuatro y cuatro, an overflowing platter of proteins and moles. Though slightly pricy, it’s the best bang for your buck considering you get a giant pyramid of savory rice, stacks of salmon, shrimp, pork, steak or chicken, and four bowls of whatever mole is on the menu.

Just as marinara sauce is to Italy, or béchamel to France, mole is Mexico’s national culinary pride. For centuries, mole has brought families and friends together at dining tables with its savory magic, which tastes as multi-dimensional as its layers of culture and tradition.

Sophia Lee is a junior majoring in print and digital journalism and East Asian languages and cultures. Her column “Cross Bites” runs Mondays.