Hi Peter,

I believe the Horchata in Mehico & that part of the world were introduced by
the Spaniards. In Southern Spain & the agricultural region of Valencia is
where you'll find tiger nuts or chufas. It's a traditional drink but not
many people drink it these days, you'll see it in fairgrounds or at the kids
stands at fiestas next to the Helados/Ice cream etc. but generally people &
kids buy all the new healthy diet stuff like yogurt etc. I even had a
Spanish woman asking me about soya milk etc. saying how great & healthy it
is etc. I said what about Horchata... she said it's some kind of old drink
that they use to drink in the old days when they couldn't get milk etc. Then
i told her how similar the 2 were & that maybe she should look into it. I
also hear that the Mexicans use rice, almonds & other stuff to substitute
for tigernuts in their Horchata & i've always wondered why no one grows
tigernuts there or in the states for horchata?

As for the thick hot chocolate. I've never been to Spain, so I don't know
how it is done there. But in the Bikol province of the Philippines, for
breakfast and as snacks, we dip binutong (glutinous rice seasoned with
coconut milk and steamed in a banana leaf wrapper) into thick hot
chocolate.
The chocolate is prepared with freshly-roasted cacao beans that are ground
and mixed up with water and sugar (or at least that is how it used to be
made).
snip

Peter, maybe a trip to the 'old country' Spain is needed. I've never thought
of Spain as a old colonial power but as a popular tourist destinations for
many in Europe but my recent trips there, i've been seeing links to many
places & countries far & wide. One of my trips to Seville, we spent a
leisurely sunday morning drinking coffee opposite the cathedral & did a bit
of people watching as families came out of church/sunday service. I saw an
elderly man wearing a natural white linen short sleeve shirt, very similar
if not the same as the ones you would wear in the Philipines when you turn
up for sunday mass or at any official gathering, what are they called? my
friend Junior's dad wears them. This gentleman must be from the 'old' family
as people were gathering around him & paid respect to him etc. & from the
guidebook i was reading, there were still families with huge houses &
cortijos inherited from colonial days when Seville was a major trading city
& ships would come up the river with goods from all over, Latin America to
the Philipines. Later we travelled to Cadiz & stayed in the old port city &
saw numerous links to the New World.

snip
The interesting thing is
that this was how hot chocolate was drunk in Spain, in Italy, in France--
all over Europe--until the invention of cacao powder, in the early 1800s,
I
believe.
snip
grinding them, and then frothing them up with lots of different spices in
a
chocolatière with a molinillo. Here's a really beautiful set of molinillo
and chocolatière that I just found on the web.
http://www.artsmia.org/modernism/ima...ool.cfm?oid=55
snip

Yep... another old world/new world connection it seems. Heeheee... if you
ever come over to Europe, you'll see a few more old/new world connections!

The Oaxacan hot chocolate is not as thick as that in the Philippines--not
sure why. In that way, I guess the Philippines is more like Spain.

From my history lesson as a kid, i do recall the Spaniards
brought/introduced Cocoa to SE Asia & probably the rest of the world.

I think it is because we are not dealing
with cacao powder, but with freshly ground beans that include the beans'
natural oils and fats.

Hahaaaa... i have an intersting story to tell you, my bro' has one of them
Italian coffee machines that has the bean hopper, grinder & water all in,
you just need to press the button & prime the steaming arm etc. Well in
parts of SE Asia like Malaysia through to Indonesia, local coffee beans are
roasted with butter to achieve a realy tasty flavour but this leaves the
beans covered in oily butter residue. He decided to use local beans instead
of the imported Italian ones etc. & the machine clogged up because of the
oils! You see, local coffee is boiled in a pot & a old muslin sock is used
to strain it. No machines & it's all done by hand. The result is a really
fragrant brew with a slighty oily film on the surface from the butter. I was
told one Italian expat living there threw out her Italian coffee & drank
local coffee everyday! Heeheee. It's highly addictive.

DC.