Mole is not just Mexican chocolate sauce, and the accent mark on many English menus is a made-up hyperforeignism. The name comes from the Nahuatl word for sauce, and this episode explores a sprawling family of more than 50 complex sauces while separating mythology from history, including the famous tales of panicked nuns in Puebla and a clumsy friar.

Drawing on Bernardino de Sahagún’s records, we show that ground sauces were an established pre-Hispanic practice, and question how old the chocolate in mole really is. We break down Rick Bayless’s five pillars of flavor, the labor of grinding on a metate, the rivalry between Puebla and Oaxaca’s seven moles, and how the town of San Pedro Atocpan turned mole into an economic powerhouse after electric mills arrived.

• Why the colonial convent origin stories serve a narrative of mestizaje more than historical fact
• The five building blocks of mole: hot chilies, sour tomatillos, sweet fruit, spices, and thickeners
• Oaxaca’s seven moles, the manchamanteles debate, and regional styles like mole verde, mole rosa, and chirmole
• How San Pedro Atocpan grew from a struggling farming village to supplying most of Mexico City’s mole
• Everyday expressions like ir a un mole and estar en su mero mole, and how leftovers become enmoladas