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From the Costa Chica of Guerrero, the ceremonial cold cacao drink of Afro-Mexican and indigenous communities: white cacao, toasted rice, panela, and canela ground on the metate and beaten by hand until a thick foam crowns the jícara.
This is from the Costa Chica of Guerrero. Not the beaches the tourists know. The stretch where Ayutla, San Marcos, Ometepec, and Cuajinicuilapa sit, where Mixtec, Tlapanec, Amuzgo, and Afro-Mexican families have shared the same drink for four hundred years. Chilate. Cold, foamed cacao with rice and cinnamon, poured into a jícara. The Ark of Taste records it under its name in the local tongue, Si'va Ña Ña. Esto no es comida de un solo México.
First, what it is not. It is not champurrado. Champurrado is hot, thick with masa, and belongs to central Mexico. Chilate is cold, raised to a foam with rice, and belongs to the Costa Chica. And despite the name, chilatl, chili water, there is no chile in it. The name is older than the recipe. What you taste is toasted white cacao, dark toasted rice, panela, and canela, beaten cold until a thick foam stands on top of the cup.
The cacao is the thing. Cacao blanco, the pale-seeded criollo that grows in the Costa Chica, toasted on the comal until the shells crack. The women grind it on the metate with the rice and the cinnamon until the cacao gives up its fat and the whole thing turns to a dark paste. Then comes the part that takes a strong arm and patience: the foam. You beat it cold, you pour it from high, you work it until the espuma rises and holds. No me vengas con atajos. A blender will get you close. The metate and the hand get you there.
Chilate is not an everyday drink. It is poured at weddings, at funerals during the novenario, at the fiesta patronal, served cold in jícaras with buñuelos to break apart and dip. My mother never made it. She was from Jalisco. But there is a page in her notebook copied from a woman in Ometepec, with one line underlined twice: frío, siempre frío. Cold, always cold. Serve it warm and you have made something else. Saber cocinar es saber vivir.
Chilate de cacao blanco from Guerrero's Costa Chica is listed in Slow Food's Ark of Taste, the international catalogue of heritage foods at risk of disappearing. The practice of raising cacao to a cold foam predates the Spanish conquest: Mesoamerican cooks, from the Maya to the Mexica, prized the froth of cacao and poured the liquid from height to build it, a technique chilate keeps alive on the metate today. The drink anchors community life among the Costa Chica's Mixtec, Tlapanec, Amuzgo, and Afro-Mexican peoples, the last of whom Mexico wrote into Article 2 of its Constitution in 2019 and counted for the first time in the 2020 census, after roughly four centuries without formal recognition.
Quantity
250 grams
toasted, shelled, and ground
Quantity
1 cup
toasted dark and coarsely ground
Quantity
2 sticks
lightly toasted
Quantity
2 cones (about 300 grams)
grated or broken up
Quantity
3 liters (about 12 cups)
divided
Quantity
1 pinch
Quantity
for serving
Quantity
for dusting
| Ingredient | Quantity |
|---|---|
| cacao blanco (white cacao beans)toasted, shelled, and ground | 250 grams |
| white ricetoasted dark and coarsely ground | 1 cup |
| Ceylon cinnamon (canela de Ceilán)lightly toasted | 2 sticks |
| panela or piloncillograted or broken up | 2 cones (about 300 grams) |
| cold waterdivided | 3 liters (about 12 cups) |
| salt (optional) | 1 pinch |
| buñuelos (optional) | for serving |
| ground Ceylon cinnamon (optional) | for dusting |
Set a dry comal or heavy skillet over medium-low heat. Add the cacao blanco beans and toast them, moving them often, until the papery shells darken and start to crack and the kitchen fills with the smell of toasted cacao, about 8 to 10 minutes. Do not rush the heat. Cacao scorches fast, and burnt cacao turns the whole drink bitter. Let the beans cool until you can handle them, then crack and rub off the shells with your fingers and winnow them away. You want the clean toasted nibs.
On the same comal, toast the rice over medium heat, stirring, until the grains turn deep golden-brown and smell like popcorn and toasted bread, about 6 to 8 minutes. This is your dark rice. It gives the chilate its color and a roasted backbone, and the starch in it is what will hold the foam later. Pour it onto a plate to stop the cooking.
Give the Ceylon cinnamon sticks a brief turn on the warm comal, 30 seconds or so, just until fragrant. Use canela de Ceilán, the soft, flaky bark that crumbles between your fingers, not the hard cassia sold as cinnamon in most supermarkets. The flavor is cleaner and it grinds down to nothing on the metate.
Break the panela into a saucepan with 2 cups of the water. Set it over low heat and stir until the panela dissolves completely into a dark syrup, about 10 minutes. Take it off the heat and let it cool all the way down. This is the only heat in the recipe, and it has to be cold again before it goes into the drink. Frío, siempre frío.
Now the metate. Grind the toasted cinnamon first, until it is powder. Add the rice and grind it to a coarse, sandy crack. Last, add the cacao nibs and grind, leaning your weight into the mano, until the cacao gives up its fat and everything comes together into a dark, slick paste. This is the pasta de chilate. It takes a strong arm and time. There is no shortcut on the stone, and the stone is why it tastes the way it does.
Scrape the paste into a wide clay jarra or a batea. Add the remaining cold water a little at a time, working the paste smooth with your hand or a wooden spoon so it does not clump. Pour in the cooled panela syrup and the pinch of salt. Taste it. It should be cold, gently sweet, and deeply of cacao and toasted rice. Adjust the panela if it needs it.
Here is the part that makes it chilate. With a molinillo rolled between your palms, or in the old way, by lifting cupfuls high and pouring them back into the jarra again and again, beat the chilate cold until a thick, pale foam rises and holds on the surface. Keep working it. The cacao fat and the rice starch are doing the work, and a proper chilate wears a deep crown of espuma. If you heat it to make the foam come easier, stop. Hot cacao thickened with starch is champurrado, and that is a different drink from a different part of the country.
Ladle the cold chilate into jícaras, the hollowed gourd cups of the Costa Chica, and spoon a generous cap of foam over each one. Dust with a little ground cinnamon if you like. Serve it cold with buñuelos to break apart and dip. This is fiesta food, wedding food, novenario food. Pour it for a crowd. Cada estado, su propia cocina, and this cup belongs to Guerrero.
1 serving (about 375g)
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