The informant’s mother would also made her a special Mexican dish for her birthday–mole (pronounced moh-ley).  In mole, chocolate is traditionally used, but the informant’s mother doesn’t use chocolate–she has her own method of preparing the dish.  The mother first roasts chipotle chilis in a pan with a little bit of oil.  Then, she takes saltine crackers and fries them with some pepper seeds.  Then, the mother combines everything together and always blesses the food as it’s simmering, making the sign of the cross over it.

The informant says that her mother’s recipe tastes just like it was prepared with chocolate, but her mother has managed to use a completely different set of ingredients.  The informant also points out that she doesn’t really like the mole, but that her mother thinks she does.

This seems to be consist with many ethnic dishes–the dish is prepared because it has always been prepared, but nobody actually likes it.