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Papua New GuineaFlavors · Tlaxcala
Dark, thick mole made from dried chiles thickened with corn dough, with pork, served in clay bowls with long tamales. It is the festival dish of Tlaxcala and an intangible cultural heritage of the state.
Traditional dish from Tlaxcala
Also known as: tlilmolli, mole prieto tlaxcalteca
Illustrative images. The pictures in this guide are illustrations based on the real place, not photographs, and may differ from it.
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Mole prieto — Tlaxcala, Mexico
Mole prieto is the festival mole of Tlaxcala. It includes toasted, ground dried chiles, and what sets it apart is the nixtamalized corn dough that thickens it and gives it body, as well as the dark color that gives it its name: prieto means dark. The most common meat is pork; there are versions with chicken or turkey.
The Náhuatl name is tlilmolli, meaning “black sauce.” Tradition links it to pre-Hispanic offerings, when it was prepared with venison or turkey; with the arrival of the Spanish, pork became the main meat. Today it is made mainly in communities such as Contla and Chiautempan, in large pots, by cooks who share the work.
Mole prieto is not an everyday dish. It appears at Carnival, during Holy Week, at patron saint festivals and at weddings, and is served to the community in cajetes and clay pots, accompanied by long corn tamales. On November 22, 2016, the Tlaxcala Congress declared it an intangible cultural heritage of the state.
Among Mexico’s moles, prieto differs from poblano and Oaxaca’s negro by the corn dough that thickens it and by its smoky flavor.
Tlaxcala
Dark mole thickened with corn dough, declared in 2016 an intangible cultural heritage of the state of Tlaxcala.
Dried chiles, nixtamalized corn dough and pork; sometimes chicken or turkey.
In clay bowls, with long corn tamales and tortillas.
Carnival, Holy Week, patron saint festivals and weddings.
Your questions
It is a dark mole from Tlaxcala, made with dried chiles and thickened with corn dough, served with pork and tamales.
At festivals: Carnival, Holy Week, patron saint festivals and weddings.
Yes. In 2016, the Tlaxcala Congress declared it an intangible cultural heritage of the state.
Flavors of Mexico
Round sweet bread with strips of dough shaped like bones, scented with orange or anise and topped with sugar or sesame. It is the offering bread of Día de Muertos and is made throughout Mexico, with shapes and recipes that vary from region to region.
Chicken pieces browned and slowly cooked in a tomato, onion, and garlic sauce seasoned with cinnamon, clove, and oregano, which in many recipes includes dried fruit. It’s the dish associated with the Feria Nacional de San Marcos in the city of Aguascalientes.
Layers of corn tortillas with black beans and shredded cazón, cooked with epazote, topped with tomato sauce and habanero chile. Despite the name, it does not contain wheat bread. It is considered a symbol of Campeche cuisine.
Salted, dried beef — tasajo — cooked in a thick sauce of ground pumpkin seeds, with tomato and rice. It is the celebratory dish of Chiapa de Corzo, served especially during the January Fiesta Grande, the Parachicos festival.
Desert distilled spirit made from the heart of the sotol or sereque plant, which is not agave — roasted, fermented and distilled. It has a denomination of origin and is the drink most closely associated with Chihuahua, which produces the majority of it.
Tacos of pork seasoned with a chile adobo, roasted on a vertical spit (the trompo), and served in a corn tortilla with pineapple, onion and cilantro. They descend from the tacos árabes brought to Puebla by Middle Eastern immigrants and took their current form in Mexico City taquerías.
Pozole made with pork and hominy cooked until nearly no broth remains, served on a plate (not in a bowl), with tostadas, lettuce, radish, onion and lime. It’s Colima’s version of pozole and one of the state’s signature dishes.
Refreshing drink made from coconut sap, harvested high in the palm and served chilled with peanuts and pieces of fruit. It arrived with Filipino influence and is the street drink most closely associated with Colima.
Hearty beef broth with chile pasado — a long green pod pepper roasted, peeled and sun-dried — plus tomato, garlic and onion. It’s Durango’s most representative dish, served in a bowl with tortillas.
White fish taco coated in a light batter and fried until golden, served on a corn tortilla with cabbage, tomato-and-onion salsa, mayonnaise or cream, and lime. It originated around 1960 at the stalls of the Mercado Negro, the fish market at the port of Ensenada.
Sandwich made with birote bread, a hard-crusted loaf, filled with carnitas and drenched in tomato sauce, with a spicy chile de árbol sauce on the side. A symbol of Guadalajara’s cuisine, which dedicated a municipal day to it on September 10.
Corn tortillas dipped in a guajillo chile sauce and fried, filled with cheese and onion, served with boiled potato and carrot, lettuce and pickled chiles. A typical dish of the city of Guanajuato, which tradition links to the wives of the silver mine workers.
Broth of cacahuazintle corn and pork thickened with a green sauce made from pumpkin seeds, tomatillo and herbs, served with many accompaniments. Dish from Guerrero, where Thursdays are pozole day.
Whole fish butterflied, marinated in achiote paste with sour orange and spices, grilled over charcoal and topped with tomato and onion. A Maya-origin dish from the Yucatán Peninsula, it’s a specialty of Isla Mujeres.
Almejas chocolatas, a large brown-shelled mollusk from the Sea of Cortés, arranged on the ground and cooked under a fire of dry branches, served with lime and hot sauce. It is the dish most closely associated with Loreto in Baja California Sur.
Thin, crispy batter cooked on a round griddle and rolled like a tube, filled with queso de bola, a cheese of the Edam type. A street sweet from Mérida, created by a family of ice-cream makers in the city and sold at night from carts in the plazas.
Whole fish butterflied open, seasoned with a chile sauce and grilled over coals secured in a double-wire grill, the zaranda, which gives it its name. An official publication places its origin on the island of Mexcaltitán, on the northern coast of Nayarit.
Large, thick corn tortilla taco topped with red rice and a stew-like filling such as chile relleno, milanesa, or boiled egg. It originated in Morelos and is the taco most associated with the state, from Cuautla to Cuernavaca.
Milk-fed kid opened, salted and slowly roasted on an iron stake beside the embers, in the shepherds’ style. It is the best-known dish of Nuevo León, present on the state’s traditional gastronomy routes, from Monterrey to the northern municipalities.
The darkest of Oaxaca’s moles: a thick sauce of chiles toasted almost to the point of burning, including the chilhuacle negro, with chocolate, seeds and spices. A celebratory dish of the state, prepared mainly in the Valles Centrales.
Poblano chile stuffed with a meat-and-fruit picadillo, topped with a white walnut sauce and sprinkled with pomegranate seeds and parsley, in the colors of the Mexican flag. A seasonal dish from late summer, associated with the city of Puebla.
Thick, dark sauce made from several dried chiles, spices, seeds and chocolate, traditionally served with turkey. Tradition links its creation to the kitchen of the old Convent of Santa Rosa in Puebla, the city that gives it its name.
Corn tortillas dipped in a guajillo or ancho chile sauce, filled with fresh cheese or chicken, folded and topped with crema and cheese, served with fried potato and carrot on the side. They are Querétaro’s typical dish.
Pork slowly cooked in its own lard in large pots until tender inside and golden outside, served in tacos. Quiroga, near Lake Pátzcuaro, is called the capital of carnitas: families in the town have been making them for more than a century.
Baked wheat-dough pastry shaped like a half-moon with a braided edge, filled with potato and meat or other stews. It arrived in Real del Monte with miners from Cornwall in the 19th century and became Hidalgo’s best-known dish.
Sweet wheat bread fermented with pulque, the agave fermented drink, instead of common yeast, and sweetened with piloncillo. It is Saltillo’s traditional bread in Coahuila, a legacy of the meeting between Spanish wheat and pulque.
Small corn masa tortillas dyed red with dried chili, filled with cheese and onion, folded into a half-moon and griddled on a comal. They are the most representative dish of San Luis Potosí, declared a state heritage.
Raw shrimp butterfly-cut and cured in lime with chiltepín chile, served with cucumber and red onion. It originated in the mountains of Sinaloa as a meat broth with water and chile and reached the coast, where shrimp took the place of meat. It is presented as the state’s most representative dish.
Distilled spirit from Agave angustifolia, roasted in an earth oven, fermented and distilled in the Sierra of Sonora. It is named after the town of Bacanora and has a denomination of origin exclusive to Sonora since 2000.
Freshwater fish with a long snout, grilled whole over coals and eaten with tortilla, lime, salt and chile amashito. It lives in the rivers and lagoons of Tabasco and is one of the state’s most representative dishes, with roots in pre-Hispanic cuisine of the southeast.
Distilled spirit from blue agave named after the city of Tequila, in Jalisco, surrounded by agave fields. It has a designation of origin since 1974, and the agave landscape and the region’s old industrial facilities are a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Salad of romaine lettuce leaves with a dressing of egg, lemon, garlic, olive oil and Parmesan cheese, served with croutons. It was created in Tijuana by the Italian cook Caesar Cardini on July 4, 1924, according to Tijuanan historian José Fernando Escobedo de la Torre.
Red snapper cooked in a tomato sauce with olives, capers, garlic, onion, herbs and pickled chiles güeros or jalapeños. A coastal Veracruz dish, from the Gulf of Mexico, considered one of the country's best-known fish recipes.
Pork marinated in achiote and bitter orange, wrapped in banana leaf and slowly cooked in an earth oven, the pib. A Sunday family dish from Yucatán that combines the pig brought by the Spaniards with a Mayan cooking technique.
Pork stew in a thick sauce of dried chilies fried in lard, with orange, chocolate, cinnamon and clove. It is the wedding dish of Zacatecas and the most important dish in the state’s cuisine.
