I took one sip and memories came flooding back. Like in that scene from "Ratatouille" where the food critic bites into his meal and is transported back to his childhood? Exactly like that.
The hot chocolate itself was very watery. Or skim milky, I guess. It didn't have much chocolate, but the taste and consistency of the hot chocolate was identical to a drink I had all the time when I was four years old and living in Zacapala.
Chocomilk was the Mexican version of Quik, or Nesquik as it's now known. I always asked for it before bedtime.
"Tia Rosi, yo quiero Chocomilk!" I'd say. Except it was pronounced "cho-ko-meal."
My aunt would pour a glass of warm milk into a pink, plastic cup with these bubble grooves on the side of it. She would then dump two spoonfuls of the Chocomilk powder into the cup and hand me the spoon so that I could stir it. I would pretend to be one of those KitchenAid electric mixers and stir the spoon in a clockwise motion, starting off slow, then speeding up until I ended up inevitably spilling some of the milk onto the wooden table. She would then offer some to my cousins, but they would refuse because, to be honest, Chocomilk wasn't very tasty. I just always wanted something sweet before going to bed, a habit I still hold today.
I haven't been to Zacapala in years, but that's because it's not exactly the most happening town. My father grew up there in the early 1940's. Back then, the population was approaching 600. Since he left, the population has tripled and Zacapala is inhabited by 1,819 people, according to wikipedia.
There's nothing particularly notable about it. It's not the largest exporter of anything. It has a church in the center of town, like nearly every other Mexican pueblo. There's no drug lord based in Zacapala. You have to travel through several miles of mountainous terrain before you reach it which makes your ears pop. There's an orange orchard a short ten-minute drive from the town. That's about it, in terms of tourist attractions.
I loved it as a four-year old, however.
I would make volcanos in Zacapala.
That's the best memory that I recalled when I took that sip of hot chocolate today.
I'd take off my chanclas and sit on the ground, gathering as much dirt as I could and then forming it into a tiny mountain. I would then take a twig and create little paths down the side of the mountain for the lava to flow down. My Tia Rosi would give me a small cup of water and I'd carefully pour it onto the mound of dirt, watching the water travel down the little paths I created. Then I'd take my Hot Wheels cars and race them around the lava. Inevitably, one car would make a turn much too sharp and he'd go careening off the edge of the volcano, falling to a fiery death. Then I'd make an explosion sound and toss the car as far as I could.
My cousins always thought it was weird so they teased me for doing that. They were older.
Once, when I was trying to use the toilet, they lit and tossed a firecracker in through the window and blocked the door so that I couldn't get out. I remember crouching in the corner and bawling, thinking that the restroom was going to explode because I had just farted.
Another time, I woke up because my cousins were shouting excitedly. There was a scorpion crawling on the wall and they were trying to kill it with an NES controller.
There's not much I wanted to say with this post. Just that I had a hot chocolate that reminded me of my time in Mexico. It's weird how the senses of taste and smell are so powerful in evoking memories. A few weeks ago, Delma got a smoothie from Jamba Juice that smelled exactly like this Jurassic Park shampoo/conditioner that I had in the second grade. The bottle had a velociraptor head for a top. I'd make raptor roars before rinsing and lathering.
I was a really weird kid.
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