Exploring the Islamic Roots of Curries & Mole

[caroline]

Hi Theabroma,

Thus far I have found no resistance from the knowledgeable food pople in Mexico City though I haven't yet finished sending the article around. I think this is for several reasons.

First, Mudejar influence in Mexico is well documented and well known (two Artes de Mexico issues on it in architecture for example).

Second, most knowledgeable food people in Mexico City are well aware of a tradition of high Mexican cuisine influenced by the Spanish and later the French. Indeed that's where they all fit. So the idea that the first cuisine imported was a Spanish version of the cuisine of al-Andalus is no problem. Especially when you have so many arabic food words in Mexico.

Third, historians of Mexico have written at length on the spiritual, musical, etc etc conquest of Mexico. All emphasize the point that however stunnning Cortés' victory over Mexico City, the Spanish wouldn't have had a prayer against the diminishing but still overwhelming majority of the indigenous population if they hadn't followed up with a cultural campaign. Hence the idea of an imposed cuisine fits with practically everything else in recent Mexican historiography.

I'll get to the nuns later,

Best,

Rachel

[tryska]

fascinating discussion...about the only input i have is that imo the worst thing to have ever happenned to "curry" was the marketing of "curry" powder.

in any case - i can definitely see the similarities between mexican and Indian cooking and have often wondered about the connection.

[lovebenton0]

Hi Fifi, 

Glad you find it interesting.

We have precious little information about actual dishes pre-Columbus.  Most of it comes from Spanish writers (Sahagún for example) who collected their information a good number of years after the Conquest from sons of the well-to-do.  Hence what we have comes through the double filter of Spanish priests and one-generation away Mexican men. 

When more residue analysis has been done, we may know more about actual pre-Conquest dishes.

But in the meantime the fact that mole means sauce in Nahuatl is not good evidence for the fact that anything resembling present-day mole was eaten pre-Conquest.

Most of the stories circulating in Mexico about the origin of mole come from the time of the Mexican Revolution in the early twentieth century.  There was a powerful "indigenista" movement which argued for the importance of indigenous or mestizo culture to Mexican nationhood (contra Spanish or French influences).  We know it best in the murals of Diego Rivera.  So there was a big push to see mole as pre-Conquest.

Incidentally the notion that mole poblano is basically Islamic has not met with any quarrels with contemporary food historians, anthropologists etc. in Mexico.

Cheers,

Rachel

Very interesting article, Rachel. I thoroughly enjoyed it as well as this ensuing discussion -- just late jumping in here.

As much as we would love those residue analysis results to be a crystal ball into the past we are still limited by only what we can see, not by what occurred in the kitchen. The mocajete or metate may show us, with very good luck on our side, what was ground in the object but not what was mixed together at any one time. sigh . . . the limits of archaeology and the wonders of it. If only we had an equivalent history of the pre-contact indigenous cooking of Mexico -- Aztec being being only one aspect of that -- even one as spottily distinct as we have managed to piece together for the history of the development of maize. Although maize was a late comer in Mesoamerican cultivation it shows the most specific "bio-engineering" during an early cultivation phase. I would like to see the development of various cooking methods such as mole in the same way -- not only how it was built -- but what is was prior to the end stage.

Just the archaeologist in me, always looking for that elusive answer, and wanting it set in stone somewhere.

Edited July 13, 2004 by lovebenton0 (log)

[caroline]

Thanks for the comments. Judith, you are so right. Wouldn't it be lovely if the analysis of residues was a crystal ball! Right now what the people I have been talking to are hoping to do is simply to find out if metates were used mainly for grinding maize, what else they were used for, whether different shapes and lithologies correspond to different uses. It's miles from mole. And all the metates in museums have been carefully scrubbed clean so you're talking about looking in new sites. In any case, it would have to be combined with ethnographic work. And people with the skill to use the metate will be gone very, very soon.

And Sharon, I'm rather inclined to give the nuns a higher culinary ranking than you are. I think it was one of the few times in history when women were responsible for creating a high cuisine. The story of Sister whatever her name was who supposedly gave mole to the visiting dignitary is almost certainly false. No mention of anything in any of the convent records. First mention in 1912.

But in all the convents, nuns (who had to be Spanish, literate and educated except for the occasional high-ranking Mexican who got in) did much of the hands on cooking. Of course they had Mexican girls to do the grinding. But there were two cuisines in the convents. One a maize cuisine for the servants who far outnumbered the nuns (about 10 to 1 if I remember right). the second a wheat cuisine for the nuns.

It was partly economic (though there were also symbolic reasons). There income was largely in kind from the haciendas they owned. So they had to add value (and turn into cash) all that wheat, fruit, chiles, etc. They did this by a catering operation for the well-to-do plus gifts to patrons. Spanish recipes with Mexican substitutions.

If I had to guess, I'd put the origins of the Alta Cocina Mexicana in the convents,

Best,

Rachel