choh-koh-LAH-tay = YAY!!!!

Hello Friends!

Today marks the first of July and my last Wednesday in Xela. The sun has just come out here, a rare commodity between the hours of 1-9pm, and I´m pondering a walk another walk about town. Earlier today I spent most of two hours walking hither and about trying to find out where I might get tickets to a national salsa dance competition that takes place here this Saturday, my last night in Xela. Best as I can figure, I need to return to a dance studio around the corner from school during their business hours (which are, of course, not posted).

After many hours of shuffling between businesses, hotels, and friendly strangers I headed over to La Vienesa--a chocolate and bread shop frequented by locals, and highly recommend by my spanish teacher, God bless her!-- for a refreshing treat, chocolate (aka choh-koh-LAH-tay; aka hot chocolate). There´s nothing so refreshing after a too-long, too-damp jaunt in the rain as a couple of warm draughts from a steamy mug of fresh chocolate. The stuff is made locally here in Guatemala, and the taste can´t even be compared to what you´ll get in the states. It´s thicker, richer, all-around better! In Xela, it´s rather common to have a neighbor, friend, or relative that makes the stuff from scratch. Such was the case last week when Celas Maya, my spanish school, sponsored a Chcolate-making lesson.

About 15 students started at 10AM by toasting the raw seeds, or semillas, over the stove in thick, clay sautee dishes. Once the seeds had darkened, and the skin loosened, we took them off the heat and proceded to peel the seeds (about the size and shape of an almond) by hand. The skin can be a bit tough, and even with so many hands at work, it took most of a hour and ahalf to get about half a gallon of mill-ready seeds.

So 2:30 rolled around, and we´d all returned to school from lunch with our host families. Led by one of the teachers--a mayan woman with brightly colored skirt and blouse standing at a mighty 4´10´´, that might be generous--we all marched (through the rain) to the a house about half a mile from school. Knocking on the most unassuming of stucco-framed, wooden doors--there were no signs, or even address so far as I could tell--an elderly man answered and invited us into the room beyond his spindly frame. This was his family´s home, he the patriarch of perhaps 70+ years. In the front room, just through the double doors at the street, was a chocolate grinder that spanned most of the room!

Customers came ready with seeds, peeled and toasted, and he provided the rest--sugar (easily 3 parts to one part seeds), eggs (yolk only), and flavoring of your choice (we used packets of vanilla powder, but one might choose from vanilla, coffee, cinnamon, ginger and even almond). The beans were put through the grinder once, coming out in a thick dark paste the consistency of peanut butter. As it oozed from the grinding wheel it was received by the mounds of sugar and flavoring waiting below. All was mixed by hand until it was an even grey-brown tone. Then all the ingredients were put through a second grinder (part of the same machine) to be mixed and ground twice more. The final product was poured, or rather scooped, onto a clean table nearby, and the pounding beginned.

For half an hour or more, all 15 of us stood pounded the brownish mounds. The more we pounded the more the color of the beans came out, darkening the sugar into an even coffee-tone. We had beads of sweat on our forheads from the force of our blows (we were literally beating the whole mess with our fists as hard and fast as we could!) when the teacher told us we needed to pack it all up and head back to school. And so we did, but only to find that our darkened chocolate powder needed to be headed and formed, also by hand, into round discs of hand-pressed chocolate. And so we proceeded to beat the mess--back and fourth between our palms--until each portion of chocolate was a heated to release the oils enough to blend the grains of sugar and chocolate into one whole mass of meltable chocolate.

It was past 6pm before we retired, dripping in sweat in a room with steamy windows (steamy from our body heat alone!). It was great! By the time we scuttled into the next room, tired and achy from a hard day´s work, we were relieved and refreshed by a hot pot of none other than our own hard-earned chocolate!

I will never again underestimate the wonder of this most lovely confection --

¡Viva el Chocolate!