"sf" > wrote in message
...
> On Sat, 18 Apr 2009 07:40:05 -0700, "Dimitri" >
> wrote:
>
>>the original Mole Poblano
>>was developed by the nuns to be used with turkey
>
> I had no idea. No wonder turkey made with mole is so darned good!
>
> --
> I love cooking with wine.
> Sometimes I even put it in the food.

see below:

Dimitri


Excerpt:


http://www.mexonline.com/molepoblano.htm


The first says that 16th Century nuns from the Convent of Santa Rosa in
Puebla de los Angeles, upon learning that the Archbishop was coming for a
visit, went into a panic because they had nothing to serve him. The nuns
started praying desperately and an angel came to inspire them. They began
chopping and grinding and roasting, mixing different types of chiles
together with spices, day-old bread, nuts, a little chocolate and
approximately 20 other ingredients..


This concoction boiled for hours and was reduced to the thick, sweet, rich
and fragrant mole sauce we know today. To serve in the mole, they killed the
only meat they had, an old turkey, and the strange sauce was poured over it.
The archbishop was more than happy with his banquet and the nuns saved face.
Little did they know they were creating the Mexican National dish for
holidays and feasts, and that today, millions of people worldwide have at
least heard of mole poblano.

The other legend states that mole came from pre-hispanic times and that
Aztec king, Moctezuma, thinking the conquistadors were gods, served mole to
Cortez at a banquet to receive them. This story probably gained credibility
because the word mole comes from the Nahuatl word "milli" which means sauce
or "concoction". Another connection could be that chocolate was widely used
in pre-columbian mexico, so people jumped to that conclusion.

Diana Kennedy, the famous cookbook author and television chef, adds a third,
less plausible version in her book The Cuisines of Mexico, [Harper & Row:New
York] 1972, (p.199-200), "This time it was Fray Pascual who was preparing
the banquet at the convent where he (the archbishop) was going to eat.
Turkeys were cooking in cazuelas on the fire; as Fray Pascual, scolding his
assistants for their untidiness, gathered up al the spices they had been
using, and putting them together on a tray, a sudden gust of wind swept
across the kitchen and they spilled over the cazuelas." Thus mixing together
such an unheard-of combination of ingredients.


What do the real experts say? "The idea of using chocolate as a flavoring in
cooked food would have been horrifying to the Aztecs-just as Christians
could not conceive of using communion wine to make, say, coq au vin. In all
the pages of Sahagun that deal with Aztec cuisine and with chocolate, there
is not a hint that it ever entered into an Aztec dish. Yet, today many food
writers and gourmets consider one particular dish, the famous pavo in mole
poblano, which contains chocolate, to represent the pinnacle of the Mexican
cooking tradition. .the place of origin of the dish and its sauce, the
Colonial Puebla de los Angeles; this beautiful city, unlike others in
central Mexico, has no Aztec foundations - and neither does the dish,
regardless of what food writers may say." Taken from The True History of
Chocolate, Sophie D. Coe and Michael D. Coe [Thames and Hudson: London] 1996
(p. 216-7).