Oaxacan Market Breakfast & Mole Walk — Before the Day Gets Hot

Oaxaca has seven moles. Most tourists eat one — mole negro at a restaurant with an English menu. I take people to Mercado 20 de Noviembre at 7am when the market women are setting up and tlayudas are coming off the comal hot. We eat where the locals eat, then walk to the chocolate grinders and mole ingredient stalls where I explain what makes each mole distinct, because they are very different things. We end at a mezcal bar that opens at 9am because the owner is a farmer who finishes work early. My anthropology thesis was on Zapotec food culture — I have been thinking about this walk for a long time.