Day 18
Today I had the pleasure of spending the day with Señora Soledad, a former instructor at the Casa Cultural de Oaxaca who now gives private cooking classes in her home in Moctezuma. The class began at 9 am in front of the cathedral. Having been referred to Señora Soledad via a chef friend, I had only spoken to her on the phone. I was greeted by a smiling, elderly woman who was definitely shorter than 5 feet tall. Being in her 70s did not slow her down. After some greetings, we walked to the local market to buy ingredients for the mole negro we planned to make.
At the market we first went to the chile vendor and bought 4 kinds of chiles: pasillas mexicanos, chile mulatos, chilhuacles, and chipotles mecos. She felt the young men running the booth were over charging her so she did a little early morning bartering. From the chile booth, we went to buy tomatoes, tomatillos, a plantain, almonds, peanuts, walnuts, chocolate (sold in round balls), mint, almoraduz (comparable to marjoram), oregano, onion, garlic and ginger. We planned to eat breakfast together so she stopped at an artisanal bakery stand to select sweet breads which would accompany our chocolate and coffee for breakfast.
One last stop before leaving the market, she chose an entire chicken (head and legs attached) and sat by as the woman vendor prepared the chicken into skinless breasts, thighs, and legs. The woman would ask Señora Soledad about various preferences as she cut the chicken and removed the skin, nails and other unwanted parts. It was a very elaborate process.
We then caught a taxi to her neighborhood, near Monte Alban, to begin the cooking lesson! As Señora Soledad prepared our coffee and chocolate, I deveined and removed the seeds of all the dried peppers we made. They had to be toasted on the stovetop until they turned black (a very slow process). There was plenty more to cut up: garlic, onions, ginger, and nuts. I also removed leaves from all the dried herbs, which we had bought still on their stems.
While the chicken began to cook, the tomatoes boiled, and the chiles toasted, we stopped to all have breakfast together, including her granddaughter, Carla. We discussed Señora Soledad’s 30 years in the neighborhood and how much more populated both her zone and the city as a whole is than it was back then. She spoke of her 2 marriages that brought her 4 children and several grandchildren. One daughter and granddaughter live with her, which brings her great comfort especially after her husband died 6 months ago. Her honest and earnest telling of her life really set the tone for the day and I found myself sharing much more of myself than I would have normally to someone I had known for such a short time.
It would be impossible to explain in this blog every step of the mole making, but I will mention some highlights. Many ingredients were toasted and then added to a big pot. Another pot held the boiled tomatoes in some of their juice. Along with a neighbor, Alberta, who was assisting Señora Soledad, I went down to the molinero to grind up the contents of the two pots.
When we arrived, the molino was being used for corn, so we had to wait for several people to have their corn ground up before the molinero went through the arduous process of cleaning the mill for our grinding needs.
The grinding itself took about 10 minutes with two passes through the mill for each pot. The molinero worked quietly and efficiently. Upon completion, I asked how much I owed him: 15 pesos (approximately $1.20). Despite having spend almost as much time cleaning the mill for our grinding, after he was finished with us, he closed the mill for the day.
Back in Señora Soledad’s kitchen, it was time for the mole to cook all together (about an hour-long process). While that happened, we prepared rice containing carrots and mint as well as horchata, made with rice, almonds, sugar and cinnamon ground up in a blender and then strained through cheese cloth. As we were cooking, two children arrived with tortillas that Señora Soledad had asked to be delivered to her from down the street.
At around 2:30 pm, the time had arrived to eat! Wow. The mole was so complex and was perfectly paired with the rice and horchata. We were joined for lunch by two of her children, a friend of her daughter’s, and her granddaughter. Everyone agreed that it was delicious, made even more so by the care and collaboration put into making it.