“New York City,” I think to myself, “It should be easy to find interesting beverages here.” But then, I find myself walking aimlessly through Manhattan, through Brooklyn, through Queens. Blisters heating up on my feet and frustration building in my mind.
Yes, there are drinks to be had everywhere. Soda and beer, cocktails and juice, water and coffee. But everything here is for sale. The city is not the home of the traditional beverage and anything that is less than legal is hard to find.
The realities of New York life drive the beverage maker into the efficiency of business. The cultural preservation of a culinary tradition only occurs where profitable. On top of this, it is more difficult to casually walk into a shop and get someone engaged in a cultural conversation. People want meetings, schedules, and a massive audience. To a certain degree, this is the beverage culture of New York City.
Frustrated, I turn to the subway in order to abandon Manhattan. More businesses have come to life and disappeared on this island than I can comprehend. The corner that houses today’s bodega has been witness to the caprices of profitability and bankruptcy for centuries. I try my luck with a random subway ride to somewhere else.
Into the heart of Queens. To get lost. To be spontaneous. To hunt for some beverage I don’t know. To escape the polished realities of Manhattan.
I end up in Corona (it’s a neighborhood). NYC The Official Guide describes the area as “a hotbed of immigration from Latin America.” This is obvious. As I’m slinking off the subway beneath the faded green, steel overpass, vendors line the sidewalks selling goods more common in other parts of the world. It is a neighborhood well supplied with remittance kiosks. Many carts offer cold juices squeezed from mangos or passion fruit. But it’s February.
After wandering aimlessly, hunger and curiosity drive me into a small corner Mexican restaurant called the Little Chinantla. The name must be a reference to the Chinanteco peoples from the state of Oaxaca–now a world famous bastion of traditional Mexican cooking. I know the Oaxacans make plenty of interesting beverages. Maybe some of those have made it to New York City.
Not exactly Oaxacan, and nothing exotic, but behold! A new drink! There is a large aqua fresca contraption endlessly spinning a corkscrew through vats of horchata, dulce de leche, and jamaica. These I know. But, on a white folding table beneath the juices, there is a crockpot labeled with a card reading “avena caliente”. Hot oats.
Yes, hot oatmeal is a food consumed by Americans everyday for breakfast, but within Latin America the same ingredients can be used to produce a beverage. It is a simple combination of oats, milk, sugar, cinnamon, and heat. The ratios dictate whether the oats turn into porridge or milk.
The woman working the restaurant is baffled by my curiosity with the simple contents of the crock pot, but she obliges me with a smile and forthcoming information. She gives me a taste of the concoction. The bottom of the crock is thick with soggy oats, but the surface is a pale milky liquid. Still, there are a couple soggy oats in each sweet sip. It is filling for a beverage thanks to the oats, but it is excellent. It is like a breadier version of eggnog. The cinnamon gives the avena a rich and festive bite.
As I’m asking the waitress at the Little Chinantla about it, the simple drink takes on layers of complication. To start, this restaurant is Mexican, and my informant is from Mexico, but she didn’t learn how to make avena caliente until she came to New York City. Yes, I can suggest that the drink is Latin American, but it is fundamentally the result of more than one culture. Oats are from the Near East. According to the Encyclopedia of Cultivated Plants: From Acacia to Zinnia, it wasn’t until 1516 that oats made their way to the New World when the Spanish brought them to the island of Hispaniola as feed for livestock. Today, some Mexicans consume oat beverages, but it is not universally known. Some may consume an oat flavored pulque curado, which is fermented agave sap.
Moreover, the waitress tells me, there are different renditions of this hot oat beverage in different Latin American countries. Dominicans are known for avena caliente. She tells me that Colombians also make an oat infusion for summertime refreshment and drink it cold. Ingredients can change slightly and viscosity is up to the preparer. A thicker version might use evaporated milk. A vegan version could use almond milk. The hot oat beverage is not a single entity.
Avena caliente, too, breaks free from American oatmeal’s temporal association. It is not just a breakfast drink, it is appropriate to consume at any time, but usually when it’s cold out. I feel vindicated that I have passed by the juice vendors in February to come upon this simple and delicious cauldron of hot oatmeal.
Oatmeal is a humble and filling foodstuff. But even this most basic food can make an interesting beverage. Most Americans would be surprised to hear that you can drink oatmeal. I, for one, was pleasantly surprised that I could find something new in New York City.
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