Making Chocolate the Oaxaca Way

 On an En Via tour we visited the home of a micro loan recipient who has a chocolate making business.  As is true of so many things in Oaxaca, chocolate is not made the easy way--and it is very important.  Two women who are making the chocolate here are sisters.  One of them is grinding the sugar, and the other one is grinding the cocoa beans, as well as the cinnamon bark.  They both agree that there are three things that you absolutely must be able to do to be considered ready for marriage--you must be able to make tortillas, you must be able to make a mole, and you must be able to make chocolate.  This is a community that lives in a simple manner, but chocolate is considered not a luxury but a staple of life.  Families in the Teotitlan de Valle region of Oaxaca would traditionally have chocolate on Wednesdays and Sundays.  The traditional way to have chocolate is in a hot chocolate form--mixed with either milk or water.  The wooden tool to stir Mexican hot chocolate is both beautiful and functional--not to mention distinctive.

Watching chocolate being made is rather tiring--making it is surely harder still!