Hot Chocolate is serious business here in Spain. Up the street from our hostel, a café advertises specials on liters of chocolate caliente and one famous restaurant serves up steaming mugs twenty-four hours a day. As a seasoned veteran of hot chocolate in all its varieties (Abuelita, Swiss Miss, Aztec Chili, you name it), this national frenzy was right up my alley.
Walking the streets in below zero conditions, the windows of these chocolaterias are beacons of warmth, with foggy windows and masses of bodies crammed together at the counter. There is no excuse not to be eating churros and drinking hot chocolate right now.
But! have you ever tried this stuff??
I don't want to discredit myself as a professional eater, nor as a connoisseur of all things sweet, but I just can't drink this Spanish chocolate! It is richer, darker and thicker than any chocolate pudding- stick in a perfunctory churro and it will stand straight up, or float atop the surface. Much to my shame, I have had to begin ordering suizo, a much lighter version of hot chocolate, more akin to Swiss cocoa. I hide away in the corners of the cafés with my incriminating beverage, certain I will be pinned as a weakling, or worse, a tourist.
Anthony Bourdain Kendra Baker would not be impressed.
