Essay Sample: Mole Poblano Recipe

Today Mole Poblano is highly recognized as a traditional Mexican dish, and often incorporated in conversations when discussing the nation's cuisine. Often poured over pieces of chicken or turkey, Mole Poblano is typically seen as a dish that is unlike others within Mexican cuisine. This is due to the fact that it incorporates the use of chocolate, spices, and poultry, typically considered an unlikely combination especially within traditional Mexican cuisine where an incorporation of sweet and spicy flavors is unseen. Although nowadays the dish is considered a part of the Mexican menu, it incorporates a distinct list of Latin American ingredients that throughout history appeared in the region and became commonplace in dishes.

The traditional recipe for Mole Poblano includes various ingredients that are found throughout the world. Being a Mexican dish several ingredients included in the recipe are found within the Latin American region, however much of the other ingredients included didn’t originate in Latin America or even remotely close to it. Ingredients such as pork lard, raisins, and sweetroll all originate or contain ingredients that originated in Europe prior to the colonization of Latin America. Before the colonial era, Europeans were large consumers of various types of meat that included beef, chicken, and pork. At this time the consumption of meat in Latin America wasn’t widespread or seen as a commodity in the region due to native civilizations relying on crops such as maize to sustain their society. However this began to change once European nations began to exploit and colonize the region. European colonizers weren’t too fond of Latin American food at the time so in order to “feel more at home” they brought large quantities of livestock to the region for consumption and agricultural purposes. Simply due to European influence, various meats started to become a commodity in Latin America. However, unlike traditional European dishes, native Latin Americans and mestizos began to formulate new dishes involving ingredients that originated in Latin America.

Several ingredients included within this recipe to make Mole Poblano originate within Latin American regions. As mentioned previously, although the Europeans heavily influenced the type of food that was being consumed, resources within the region found itself being incorporated in dishes. Ingredients such as chiles, nuts, chocolate, sugar, and plantain have been grown and consumed in Latin America for centuries. Unlike other regions throughout the world, the rich fertile lands of Latin America make for a prime agricultural hub that produces a wide variance of crops, much of which isn’t typically found anywhere else. This actually plays a significant part in the reasons Latin America was originally colonized as it was seen as a lucrative source of resources that European nations were able to exploit for their own benefit. Products such as sugar were incredibly valuable to the Europeans as it brought flavor and sweetner to their own food. Entire countries such as Brazil were colonized and exploited by Portugal to obtain these massive amounts of sugar in exchange for old world resources. To reiterate, Mole Poblano is recognized as a traditional Mexican dish due to the fact that many regional crops and resources are used to formulate the dish and prepare it for consumption.

Several other ingredients throughout the recipe also aren’t directly related to Latin American or European regions, in particular raisins and sesame seeds. Sesame seeds originated within Asian regions and raisins were first commonly produced within Mediterranean and African regions. Although these ingredients aren’t typically seen in other Latin dishes, the explanation behind why they are incorporated relates to the fact that following the colonial era, independent Latin American nations started to trade and export resources to grow economically. This means that these ingredients are incorporated due to global trade influence and the trading of resources between Latin America and other nations.

To conclude, although the traditional Mexican Mole Poblano dish is recognized nowadays as a staple of it’s cuisine, due to global influence and historical events the dish was able to be formulated. Dating back to the European colonial era, the popularity of using meat in dishes paved the way to how various dishes involving meat are prepared in Latin America. In addition to the fact that various Latin American countries use their natural resources in their cuisine, various dishes such as Mole Poblano are able to exist and be enjoyed today.