OAXACA,OA—Horchata is not exclusively a Mexican beverage, but it is an essential refreshment throughout the country. The milkish drink has roots in the Mediterranean where it was once made of barley, among other things. The Spanish brought the concept with them and a couple ingredients, namely rice and almonds. These ingredients, when soaked and ground, ended up being suitable as substitutes and Mexican horchata was born.
South of Mexico, Hondurans, Salvadorians, and Nicaraguans all have their renditions of the drink. Salvadorians famously add morro seeds for a darker, spicier flavor. Even within Mexico there is some diversity in the production of horchata. No one is better suited to explain that than Casilda Flores Morales, the legendary horchatera of Oaxaca. Her experience presents a broad cross-section of Mexican agua fresca history.
Casilda has since passed away, but Oaxacan authorities had the wherewithal to publish a long interview with her during her life. Her generational knowledge of horchata and other agua frescas is an invaluable insight into the milky past of Mexican refreshments, with or without almonds.
In 1989, the Dirección General de Culturas Populares and Dirección de Educación, Cultura y Bienestar Social visited Casilda in her home to reflect on her family history selling drinks in Oaxaca. The interview drew on 100 years of intergenerational experience in the production and sale of these drinks and proves that something as seemingly simple as horchata can be innovated upon.
Casilda told the interviewers that her family started selling local culinary staples back in 1890. At that time, they only sold pineapple beer, nicuatole, and agua de chilacayota. Nicuatole is not a drink (despite the term atole,) rather a gelatinous dessert. The other two, however, are drinks. Agua de chilacayota, a refreshment made from a gourd, is still extremely common throughout Oaxaca. Pineapple beer, however, is extinct.
Even in 1989, at the time of the interview, Casilda stated that pineapple beer had long ago disappeared. Fermented pineapple is commonly called tepache, but Casilda insisted that this drink was unique. She stated, “And the difference that there is between pineapple beer and tepache is that the beer is made only with the rind of criolla pineapple and tepache includes castilla plantain peel, cinnamon, piloncillo, toasted corn, peppers, pineapple rind, and a piece of wood I can’t remember.”
While this refreshment has since disappeared, Casilda was able to comment on what she considered classic and traditional flavors of agua fresca. Among her “traditional” rankings were prickly pear with cassava and walnut, chia with lime, and almond horchata with prickly pear. She designated tamarind, pineapple, soursop, hibiscus, sapote, plum, melon, watermelon, and peach to be secondary tier refreshments. Locally, Casilda’s family is sort of lionized as having invented almond horchata with prickly pear. They still sell it to this day.
Casilda claimed that her aunt was the one who came up with the family’s recipe for almond horchata with prickly pear. But we can’t be sure that they were the first to make the mix. Horchata is far older than the Flores family’s business, and almond horchata was concurrent with their early 20th century foray into horchata. Who can say if they added tuna to the drink first?
Undoubtedly, their version is one of the most famous horchatas in all of Mexico. From the stand in Benito Juarez Market, Casilda’s family members keep the business and tradition alive. They have massive clay amphorae filled with the most popular flavors, a rotund demonstration of just how much business they can do in a day. Other flavors are presented in glass pitchers that display an array of colors. Overlooking the entire operation–a photo of Casilda. Her eyes look out across the aisle at the competing agua fresca stall that has opened across the way.
The almond horchata with prickly pear is still a bestseller. It has all the smoothness of almond milk with more body. Slivers of cantaloupe surprise in the mix with walnuts sprinkled on top. The prickly pear is presented in a red syrup that sweetens the horchata and compliments the almond in the weirdest of ways. Looking around the stand, most everyone is enjoying the same drink.
It is not easy to make a name for yourself selling horchata. Most folks can make horchata at home or buy it at any convenient street corner. Casilda’s dedication to a seemingly simple livelihood and her family’s secret recipe have catapulted her into the pantheon of Oaxacan gastronomy. Lucky for all of us, the drink has outlived the horchatera and her words have been immortalized in ink.
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