el crispito

First, you have to know what mole poblano is. A brief description is that it's a very complex sauce made from 10-20 ingredients, including chiles and chocolate. A more involved description might tell that it was allegedly created by a nun for a visiting bishop to her city of Puebla, where the people are refered to as poblanos and where the well-known Battle of Puebla took place (the reason cinco de mayo is celebrated). This sauce is traditionally served with turkey (mole poblano de guajalote, the national dish of Mexico), but I can highly recommend a vegetarian version that I've enjoyed at Casa Fuerte in Tlaquepaque that is kind of a cheese enchilada in mole poblano.

As interesting as the history and diverse availability of mole poblano is, it is the complexity of the sauce that is used to give a sense of la raza here in Mexico. Most people are aware of the mixing of the indigenous folks with the Spanish that went on, but the blood of Mexicans has also been refined by other groups (French, Irish, German, Chinese, etc.) throughout the history of the country, with each group having its own reason for coming to and staying in Mexico. The United States might be referred to as a "melting pot," due to its multiethnic nature, but it's really more like a Whitman's Sampler in comparison to Mexico. In the United States, you have the Italian section of town, the Chinese district, the Irish neighborhood. Here, people from all these different backgrounds really did "melt together" to form a more consistent mix.

It is interesting to note that of the most of the ingredients of mole poblano de guajalote, besides chili, chocolate and turkey, are not indigenous, although that is not true of all the many different types of moles, such as the famous versions associated with Oaxaca, like amarillo, colorado or negro.