Almanza’s Mexican restaurant

Address: 110 E Ivinson Ave, Laramie, WY 82070

Country Represented: Mexico

Special: Mole – Chicken with Luis Almanza’s family mole recipe- never written down but so good that it creates generational memory.

Roger Coupal

UW Faculty

Growing up near the Mexican border Latin America has always fascinated me and is a region of immense food diversity. A lot of what we eat and produce came from that region. The most obvious is of course corn, but there is a lot more, of which we sometimes forget. Tomatoes, wild on the slopes of the Andes, became a cultivar in Central America by Ancient Maya and who also first domesticated turkeys. Avocados we all know: Central America and cultivated by Mayans, and still do. Cacao (chocolate) came originally from the Amazon and was exported north long before Columbus came. Molé origin is pre-hispanic a very tasty sauce that many have tried North of the border, mostly the dark, sweet sauce made with cacao (Molé ojo), and many also using Molé verde with pumpkin seeds. It is good on meat, rice, vegetables, and more. Not mention names but, some are even known to put it in oatmeal with pico de gallo. But there is a huge variety of different types in Mexico. Munoz (2020), https://blog.xcaret.com/en/mexican-mole/ identifies 8 types of molé and has identified more than 50 different varieties in Mexico. There are likely even more.