Mother stock

Jason_37238

not in the sauce sense, but like similar to vinegars or yeast,

I've heard of mole sauce that is 365 days old by adding a big of the old into the new,

How is that hygienic? wouldnt it spoil ?

is it possible to do this with stock ? etc? 

source:http://madfeed.co/post/74176215992/enrique-olvera-pujol-mole

Tim_Roth_78505

I think there are too many unknowns from this description to discern what exactly they're doing here. If their "reheating" process actually involves "charring and roasting" as the article suggests - and they do this twice a day as indicated - then there's not going to be a whole lot of serious issues with spoilage or hygiene, especially if you're regularly diluting out the old sauce. The article also doesn't mention whether or not they started the sauce as a fermentation (like you would a sourdough starter) or whether or not they store the reheated moles in the fridge between serving times, etc. In all honesty, it looks like a semantic distinction designed to sound artistic rather than to actually refer to a fermentative process. A change in flavor is by no means only caused by microbial activity, and the fact that they're remaking this stuff daily and changing the ingredients as they go really just points toward the "living" nature being a conceptual, artistic practice more than a scientific one.

TL;DR: I don't think this is anything close to a vinegar mother or sourdough starter. I wouldn't try this one at home.

(I haven't experimented with this per se, but I've lived with roommates who have left curry on the stove for a few days, and they reported that it tasted pretty foul. The stuff I've had grow in nutritional broths in labs is similarly unappetizing...)