Cuisine and Conquest: Mole
I’m writing this in response to Juan’s interesting comment on my argument about mole. He argues that there was mutual influence. I want to say yes, and yes but . . .
Here’s are the reasons why the mutual influence theory is tempting to me.
Mutual influence fits with contemporary sensibilities. We live in a world where multiculturalism is admired, where it seems natural to have mutual interchange with other cultures.
Mutual influence fits official Mexican history. There’s much that could be said about this but in brief since the Revolution, the idea of mestizaje, of mixing of indigenous and Spanish, has been the official line in Mexico.
Mutual influence is a priori probable. The number of Spanish in New Spain in the first century or so was tiny compared to the indigenous population. From Cortez on, many Spanish had indigenous wives or mistresses. Moreover it took time to import all the elements of the European kitchen, from wheat to pots, from citrus trees to cattle.
Mutual influence did occur in some instances. Apart from the examples Juan mentions, there are clear traces of indigenous craftsmanship in the churches, well-to-do Spanish women did wear huipiles from time to time, and so on.
So here are the buts.
It’s rash to assume that our multicultural sensibility existed in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.
It’s equally rash to assume that a historiography created following the Mexican Revolution describes what went on in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.
The Spanish were conquerors. Although it seems a priori likely that as a small group in a strange land, they would accept a lot of the local culture I’m not convinced that this is what happened. They were very picky about what they accepted and what they didn’t. For example, it made sense to play up the sophistication of Tenochtitlan to persuade the King of Spain that, even if they had not reached the East, they had at least found a prize worthy of capture. They were prepared to accept certain luxury goods, chocolate being a clear example, though they re-invented this to fit their own preconceptions of a luxury drink, preparing it as they would have prepared hot spiced wine. In short, the Spanish admired and accepted certain aspects of indigenous culture on their own terms and for their own uses. Otherwise they went right ahead and built their churches on top of the existing temples and pyramids. And in culinary terms, they imported their own kitchens, their own ingredients, their own techniques, their own dishes.
The Spanish came from an intensely class conscious society. Many of the early settlers wanted to improve their standing in the Spanish social hierarchy. They were prepared to go to considerable lengths to do so. Accepting the foods of the conquered (and hence lower in the hierarchy) was not what a social climber would do.
For these reasons, then, and some others I will post about later, I find it more useful to think of mole poblano as a dish with Moorish origins being made in New Spain than to think of it as one aspect of the mutual influence of two cuisines.
But the whole issue of cuisine and conquest is a fascinating one.
Your argument is well and good until you look at the bigger picture. You don’t need a liberal attitude toward multiculturalism for ingredients and techniques to spread between cultures. Were the European colonial powers not trying to enter into the markets of the East Indies to access their spices?
Just look at the history of chocolate. The Mesoamericans had their own native cacao drinks, which the Europeans tweaked with sugar and milk to produce the renowned European chocolate-making traditions we see today. The fact that mole recipes include indigenous ingredients such as cacao and chili peppers indicate that there were definately influences coming from the Mesoamerican side.
In fact, your entire argument is based on cross-cultural influences between Hindu, Muslim, and Christian cultures. Why is it such a stretch to suppose Mesoamerican influences into the picture?