The Pursuit of Duende

Beautiful weather brings up beautiful memories - of growing up at my grandmother's at La Granja where breakfast began with a cup of frothy Spanish-style chocolate. There was a cacao tree outside the window in one of the bedrooms. The buds when ripe had seeds that were ground in water and dried on banana leaves into pastilles we called tablea. Unlike the Mexican tablets I used this morning for this cup of chocolate, tablea was pure cacao with no added sugar. The sugar and milk were added on cooking, the brew then whipped in a special aluminum canister with a wooden beater until frothy. Childhood memories are unbeatable but we have to be satisfied with what we can dish up today.

Posted via email from Duende Joes