In the Zapotec Oaxaca of Juárez, the meal is not arranged as starter-main-dessert: everything revolves around the comal, the clay griddle placed on the embers, and nixtamal — corn cooked with lime then ground into masa. The day unfolds with almuerzo (in the morning, beans and tortillas), comida (the big midday meal, where mole appears on feast days), and merienda (the light evening meal, a chocolate de agua and a sweet bread). Women knead the masa on their knees before the metate, and every household eats from clay plates, near the fire, without luxury — especially among modest people like Benito's family.

The mother technique of this table is nixtamalization: corn soaked in lime water (cal) becomes masa, the basis of tortillas and atoles. To this responds the gustatory signature of Oaxaca, its dried and smoked chiles — chilhuacle, pasilla, guajillo — which give mole its ink-like color and its bitter, spicy depth.