"Wayne Lundberg" > wrote in message
...
>
> "Gunner" <gunner@ spam.com> wrote in message
> ..
>
> cut for brevity...
>
>> and as I understand there are Mole that do not use nuts as a textural
>> component.
>>
>> now a question, In the vernacular, wouldn't the dish we know as Chili, a
>> spiced meat dish, be a mole or in SouthWest Asia, a curry?
>>
> One of our favorite subjects for discussion is the difference between
> Tex-Mex, Mexican, and other world recipes using chile. We know San Antonio
> is where Texas chili was born, with the chile-girls selling their tasty
> morsels in the central plaza back when the West was the West. And we know
> that Birria in Guadalajara resembles Texas chili with the main difference
> being goat instead of beef, and few of us equate mole with anything but
> mole
> because it is unique in the world. Mole in it's purest uses the oldest
> turkey in the flock to stew in the sauce for at least two days. The sauce
> itself is made of a dozen different dried chile pods, peanuts, chocolate,
> sesame seed, pumpkin seeds and a list as long as your aunt's foreleg for
> the
> rest of the spices and condiments such as tomato, onion, and the rest. But
> not cumin!!! No cumin in south of the border Mexican food please.

Why no cumin?

I see it in cook books authored in Mexico by Mexicans all the time. It's
safe to say that many Sopas contain camino seed, as well as other meat and
vegetable dishes.

Maybe there was no cumin in recipes before the Spanish conquest, but that
would make them native foods, not Mexican. Consider that Pasta was not a
part of italian cooking until fairly recent, as well as tomatos. That does
not mean Pasta and Tomatos are not in Italian food.