Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
Atole — a warm, liquid gift from ancient Mexico
Every Sunday, Mexican vendors at Chicago’s Maxwell Street Market offer the sometimes humble, always delicious, foods of their homeland. Tamales, tacos and other familiar cornbased street bites are served up at the many makeshift stands. Next to dark metal comals smoking with griddled tortillas and grills where meat meets flame, you’ll spot large insulated containers with hand-written signs taped on the sides, announcing the contents: “Atole” and “Champurrado.”
Atole (ah-toe-lay) is a drink made with masa, finely ground corn flour. When chocolate is added, it becomes champurrado (cham-poor-ah-doe).
The word “atole” is derived from Nahuatl, the still-living language of the Aztecs, who were defeated by Hernan Cortez in 1521 in what is now Mexico City. Atole was popular long before Cortez surprised Montezuma with a visit, so the people of Mexico have been drinking atole for many centuries, probably millennia. That’s really no surprise as atole is, in fact, probably the easiest way imaginable to consume corn. Just add water to ground corn, and voila: atole.
Atole is like thin porridge. Served warm, it’s an excellent way to take the chill off a cold morning. Atole is frequently consumed at breakfast but can be enjoyed any time of day.
There are commercial mixes available, but atole is so easy to make, you might as well make it the way Mexican grandmothers have been preparing it for ages. For 4 servings:
1. Stir 2 cups warm water into to 1 cup masa; strain 3 times; pour into a saucepan.
2. Add 2 cinnamon sticks and 2 cups warmed (not boiled) milk.
3. Stir over low heat until thickened and warmed.
You can take atole to the next level by adding Mexican chocolate, which usually comes in hard, segmented disks, about the size of a hockey puck. For this recipe, crumble up 1 whole disk (use a sharp knife to chunk it and then a mortar and pestle to finely grind it); then dissolve it all in the warm milk before adding to the strained masa.
You can also add fruit or honey to enliven this gruellike platform. Atole is a blank canvas to which you can apply any flavoring you please. And you probably do want to add something; atole without flavoring is somewhat, um, blah.
For an upgraded though untraditional approach, you might add tequila or other spirits to create a warm cocktail. To each cup, we added a shot of Patron Citronge, an orange liqueur from Mexico that lends a citrusy lightness. For a sweeter, almost dessertlike cocktail/after-dinner drink, add this liqueur to a chocolate-based atole. Chocolate and orange were made for one another.
Mix atole with water to get the right consistency: thin and light in warmer months, thicker and heartier in cooler months, especially during Day of the Dead celebrations (Oct. 31 to Nov. 2), when champurrado is the go-to beverage.