Horchata Oaxaqueña con Tuna y Nuez

This is Oaxaca. Specifically the Mercado 20 de Noviembre in Oaxaca City, where the aguas frescas vendors line the corridor and where the horchata is not the thin, milky version you drink everywhere else in Mexico. Oaxacan horchata is loaded. Tuna syrup, diced melon, chopped pecans, a dust of canela on top. You drink it with a spoon because the spoon is the only honest tool for what is in the glass.

The rice and almonds are the base, soaked overnight, blended long, strained twice. That is non-negotiable. What makes it Oaxaqueña is everything that comes after. The tuna, the prickly pear from the nopal, gives the surface its bright magenta color and a flavor halfway between watermelon and rose. The melon adds cold, sweet bite. The nuez, pecans, gives it texture and weight. Without the toppings, you have horchata. With them, you have horchata oaxaqueña, and there is a difference.

My mother never made this. She was from Jalisco and her horchata was the plain milky version with cinnamon. I drank Oaxacan horchata for the first time in 1998, in the 20 de Noviembre, served by a senora named Doña Pina who has been there since before I was born. She handed me the glass with a long spoon and said, "se come" — you eat it. That is the whole instruction. Saber cocinar es saber vivir, and saber beber tampoco está de más.