5 lbs. chicken

8 cups of water

1 garlic clove

½ onion

t Tbs. salt

Sauce:

9 oz. chiles anchos, seeds and membranes removed

8 oz. chiles guajillo, seeds and membranes removed

6 oz. chiles chilguacle, seeds and membranes removed6 lz. Onion

9 oz. sesame seeds

9 oz. raisins

9 oz. almonds

1 piece french bread

2 lbs. chocolate

1 ½ stick cinnamon

10 lbs. tomatoes

1 tbs. sugar

8 whole cloves

4 black peppercorns

½ tsp. aniseed

chicken stock

salt to taste

Preparation

Rinse the chicken. Place it with water, garlic, onion and salt in a large pot or Dutch oven, bring to a boil; cover and simmer over medium heat for 1 hour or until the chicken is tender. Drain, reserving the stock, and set aside.

To make the sauce, heat 2 tablespoons of the oil in a skillet, add the chiles anchos, pasillas and guajillos and sauté for 1 or 2 minutes. Transfer to a bowl, cover with hot water and soak for 30 minutes. Drain, transfer to a blender and puree. Set aside.

Roast the tomatoes. Peel the tomatoes, transfer to a blender, and puree. Set aside.

In the same oil in which you sauted the chiles, sauté the onion and garlic for 2-3 minutes. Transfer to a blender. In the same oil, sauté the almonds for 5 minutes. Transfer to a blender. Add the cloves, peppercorns, cinnamon, bread and aniseed and sauté for 3 more minutes. Transfer to the blender, add the raisins and puree.

Heat a cup of oil in a large pot or Dutch oven. Stir all of the purees together, add to the pot and boil for 5 minutes, stirring constantly. Add the chocolate and sugar, stirring constantly. When the mixture comes to a boil, add 4 cups of the chicken stock. Cover and cook over low heat for 20 minutes. Add salt and seasoning to taste. If the sauce is too thick, add more stock.

Add the pieces of chicken, cover and cook over medium heat for 10 minutes. Meanwhile, toast the sesame seeds in a small skillet over medium heat until they are golden. Serve the cken mole hot, sprinkled with the sesame seeds.

How to prepare the dough for the tamales.

In Oaxaca the dought for tamales is made the traditional way; to begin, corn is cooked with lime for the nixtamal. Then the nixtamal is taken to the mill where the corn is ground and thus the tamale dough is made. Here in the United States one can easily find a pre-pared tamale dough in stores that sell Mexican products.

To the dough just add pork fat and knead well. Overlapping layers of banana leaves are used to wrap the tamale. Fist place the dough, then the chicken and cover with the mole sauce. The tamale is then placed in a steamer for two hours.

The Oaxacan women know the art of folding the banana leaves so that the content of the tamale do not spill out.

The tamales are then cooked in a steam bath for 40 to 45 minutes.

The author has gathered many of these special recipes to include in her series of books: Through the Eyes of the Souls, Day of the Dead in Mexico. Some recipes are difficult to find outside of Mexico, even in top restaurants. Certain recipes are only made for specific celebrations. Learn more about Mexican cuisine and how it ties into Mexican culture with these books.

Typical of Oaxaca

Fruit Atole (Hot drink made from corn starch and fruit.)

Ingredients:

10 cups milk

1/2 lb. sugar

2 lb. of any kind of fruit

1 stick of cinnamon

1/8 tsp. baking soda

1 cup corn starch

Preparation:

Wash, cut, and boil the fruit in water until it is soft. Drain and transfer to a blender. In a saucepan, combine the strained fruit, milk, sugar, and baking soda. Dissolve the corn starch in some water and combine it with the rest of the ingredients. Set the mixture over low heat, stirring constantly until it thickens. Add sugar to taste before mixture begins to boil. Remove, let cool, and drink.

People select the bread they want to offer their ancestors, a food that is later enjoyed by the family.

The people of Mexico City remember those who have crossed the river that separates life from death.

This two-fold experience enlightens the beginning and the end of a cycle.

“According to the sacred Mayan book of the Popol Vuh, Mayan man was created out of corn. Arisen from the yellow lushness of the mazorca, he is sustained by the hand of Bacab of the South, in the presence of the stars adorning the night of the white hand of Bacab of the North.

The West, ‘Grave of the Sun’ and ‘Crib of Bad Winds,’ symbolizes war, animals of the night, hunger and death. Their Bacab is black. The Bacab of the East is red; out of which surge the fragrant rains of the great harvests that give life to man, and through him, to science and art. In this way, Fernando Castro Pacheco painted the eternal Mayan in 1971.” This information was gathered from the Records Registry at the Merida Government Hall.

Here, the origin of the meaning of corn in the life of the Mayan communities is described. Anthropologist Miguel Angel Vergara defines the essence of the Mucbil chicken, a regional plate centerpiece of veneration and conviviality on the table of the altar. “What beautiful symbolism: imagine the tamal made from the dough of corn, with its meat of chicken or pork; with the achiote and wrapping of banana leaf cooked in a fire pit. The substance, baked by Mother Earth is that essence of man transformed into its food.

For that reason, the mucbil chicken is also transformed into food for the soul; that pib, that tamal, comes from the womb of Mother Earth to give man the opportunity to nourish his body and soul.” One commonly hears reference made to the “season of the pibes.” This is none other than the allusion to the sharing of food with the souls of the deceased and living relatives during Hanal Pixan, or Day of the Dead. It also refers to the preparation of mucbil chicken, a family activity, whose importance lies in that it is carried out together, establishing unity among family and neighbors.

The labor commences days before the holiday. The corn must be taken off the cob. The espelon bean must be removed from the pod, an activity where young and old participate. Hanal Pixan is an occasion to share with the young that the grownups will not pass up easily, particularly the way of preparing the pib while sharing long-ago memories of past times. This oral communication is a way of maintaining tradition. Before the sun rises on the first of November, women head to the market to purchase the necessary last minute ingredients. It is critical that the pibes be ready at about one o’clock in the afternoon. Also early on, they take the nixtamal to be ground up, and when it is time for it to be cooked, the older women who know how to prepare kol, the dough and the tortillas, direct the preparation of mucbil chicken.

The chicken is boiled with oregano, garlic, pepper, a branch of epazote and onion until you get a concentrated broth. Take out all the pieces, for it is in the boiling broth that one adds the corn dough, diluting it so it gathers consistency. Subsequently, the achiote de arbol, pre-seasoned with lard and oil in equal parts is added so the pieces come out soft. This is what is called kol, one of the key ingredients in the seasoning of mucbil chicken. While the kol is prepared, others clean banana leaves with a piece of cloth after they have been toasted in the fire. Some knead the dough and others make tortillas, still others fill a mold with chicken, pork, or simply with espelon.

They add small slices of tomato, onion and epazote leaves covered with thick kol liquid. Then the same dough is used to cover it. The filled mold is wrapped with a banana leaf and tied, then placed on a solid base so as not to become a problem placing it in or taking it out of the fire pit. In many communities the mucbil chicken is typically shaped in the form of a square, each corner pointing North, South, East, and West.

Another food that is prepared is the chachacuah, a baked tamale condimented with the same spices required in the mucbil chicken. The only variation is that the dough is a bit thinner. With great eagerness the men and children gather fire wood and stones of proper size for arranging on top of the lighted wood. The adults are in charged of choosing a high place in the house patio to make the pit. This is a task that obliges the men carry it out, as it involves heavy physical toil.

The flame is started in the fire pit. Once the wood has been consumed and the stones are flaming red, the pibes are deposited one by one. In many towns, the fire pit becomes communal. If there is a neighbor who

wants to cook their pibes along with the person who made the ditch, they are permitted to do so with great pleasure, only all parties are certain to mark them appropriately so as not to confuse them with the others. Once the pibes have been set on the stones, young guava leaves are arranged over them. The pit is then covered with a shield and hefty henequen sacks known as pitas, and finally covered with dirt.

One must carefully mind the traditional knowledge and not allow the smoke to escape or the heat to flee; otherwise, they will not cook completely. It is said that whoever lacks the knowledge of mucbil pollo is called sis ka, which means cold hands. A thing that appears very simple has its particularities, and people should know how to do it. That is why the grownups are always the ones in charge of the task.

“To this we call tradition, when a group goes on teaching new generations how to do things,” comments Amilcar Ceh Cih, who gave us the privilege of seeing the preparation of pibes from beginning to end. Approximately two hours after burying the mucbil pollo the hefty henequen sacks and the shields are removed. The pibes are placed away with great care not to burn oneself, since the heat of flaming red stones in a ditch can reach extremely high temperatures.

The first pibes are placed on an altar. The whole family recites a prayer and afterwards they enjoy this delicious dish, accompanied by drinks like chocolate, atole nuevo, posole, sacha (white water) made of corn, or balché.

The cult of the “skull” is almost universal; many cities around the world have preserved it due to the belief that in it the powers of the deceased can be found. In pre-Hispanic Mexico rituals were dedicated to them. The calaveras are equally alive through the celebration of the Day of the Dead.

These verses poke fun, in the form of an epitaph, at the defects of people who are presented as dead. This tradition that originated in colonial times has ties to certain religious expressions of the High European Middle Ages which can be seen in the Danza de la Muerte (Death’s Dance) and the indigenous pre-colonial beliefs that reflect death as an inseparable companion. One of the best known calaveras, is the one dedicated to an ex-dictator of Mexico, General Porfirio Diaz: “The English man is a skeleton so is the Italian and Maximilian; the Roman Pontiff, all cardinals kinga, dukes and councilmen and the Head of State in the grave are all the same: only a pile of skeletons.”

Children, carrying a pumpkin, sing their calaveras hoping to receive a token of gratitude from those that listen to them.In Xoxocotla, Morelos, I found a group of children who would not allow us to pass without first listening to them: “Death is hungry, is there a piece of bread somewhere around there? Don’t finish it all, leave some for me. Chili with egg, chili with bread, death wants to eat.”

The calaveras are also reflected in these festivities in the recordings of Jose Guadalupe Posada. Candy skulls come in different sizes. Sugar is dissolved in water until it becomes a thick syrup which is then poured into molds. Once the sugar hardens it is decorated with colored sugar and brightly colored paper cut-ups. Finally, a Christian name is placed on the forehead of the skull. In this manner one can buy a candy skull with the name of a friend or relative so that they can “eat their skull.”

Candy skulls and figurines made of sugar are also used in the altars, symbolizing the deceased who are being honored. In the new offering in Morelos, candy skulls specifically symbolize the head of the honoree, whose body is represented by the altar.

Amaranth skulls are also made this time, using walnuts for the eye sockets and peanuts or pumpkin-seeds for the teeth. Chocolate skulls are equally appetizing, easily seen in the marketplace among the sugar and amaranth skulls.