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Mole, Three Continents in One Sauce

Mole, is a quintessential fusion Mexican dish with elements from the Americas, Asia, and Africa. The term mole comes from the Nahua word mblli, which mean sauce. Indigenous people had been cooking and preparing drinks with cacao and peppers for many years and over time they developed mole. In fact Aztec oligarchs received cacao as tribute form the groups who the conquered and cultivate it as part of their subsistence crops. The labor intensive rich spicy chocolate sauce most often contains spices native to Asia such as cloves, cinnamon, and pepper along with other ingredients. Mexican cooks most often serve mole dishes garnished with sesame seeds which are indigenous to Africa. The seeds arrived in Mexico via the Atlantic slave trade. Iberians imported large numbers of Africans to during the colonial period to work in the mining industry and plantations and as domestic servants. 

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