# Horchata recipes? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [July 19, 2004, 4:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/horchata-recipes/255777 "2004-07-19T04:21:17Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 4\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Eva\_Luna](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/e495f1/32.png) [@Eva\_Luna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eva_Luna)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2004, 4:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/horchata-recipes/255777/1 "2004-07-19T04:21:17Z")
I tried real _horchata_ for the first time last weekend, and I’m in love. Nonwithstanding certain pigheaded Spaniards who insist that the only true stuff is made from something I’ve never heard of called _chufa_ (tiger nuts, whatever the heck those are - anyway, they don’t carry them at my neighborhood supermarkets, of which there are several, both mainstream American and of various random ethnicities), I’m talking about the kind made from rice, water, sugar, cinnamon, and vanilla extract. Of course, there are a zillion recipes out there on the Web, but I’m looking for something tried and true from an actual human being, preferably originating with someone’s little, tiny Mexican grandmother. I’ve got all the basic ingredients in the house, but the recipes have different instructions: some want you to soak the rice overnight before blending and straining, some want you to pulverize the rice first, some want you to soak the cinnamon sticks overnight with the rice…and that’s before we even start talking about proportions and straining the end result. So what’s the authentic method? I’ve even got a huge bottle of Mexican vanilla extract I browbeat a co-worker into bringing back from vacation. Enlighten me! ---
**Author:** ![matt\_mcl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/7ab992/32.png) [@matt\_mcl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/matt_mcl)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2004, 4:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/horchata-recipes/255777/2 "2004-07-19T04:52:19Z")
No idea, but just wanted to share the Valencian folk etymology: legend has it that shortly after Jaume I conquered Valencia, he was relaxing in the _huerta_ in the heat of the day, when an Arab girl offered him the drink. Upon tasting it, he found it so refreshing that he exclaimed, _Aixó es or, xata!_ (This is gold, girl!) ---
**Author:** ![Chairman\_Pow](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/838e76/32.png) [@Chairman\_Pow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chairman_Pow)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2004, 4:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/horchata-recipes/255777/3 "2004-07-19T04:54:17Z")
What, the concentrate that comes out of the bottle’s not good enough for you? I’ve always found that the places that spelled it “orchata” were superior to the places that used the h-. OK, so this is really only a bump… ---
**Author:** ![Eva\_Luna](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/e495f1/32.png) [@Eva\_Luna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eva_Luna)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2004, 2:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/horchata-recipes/255777/4 "2004-07-19T14:11:43Z")
Not to hijack my own thread, but I must share this tangentially related story… When I was studying in Spain, I was friends with a Japanese girl who lived in the _pensión_ with me. She was very sweet and cute as a button, but not so bright, and her Spanish was barely functional – she was studying fashion design, and Spanish was just a professional necessity. And she was very, very sensitive about the fact that she looked different from everyone else, even though pretty much every guy who met her had the hots for her. One day she came back to eat lunch with us, and she was practically in tears. Apparently on her walk home from class, some guy had shouted out to her, \*Hola, chata! \* [Hi, cutie! – my apologies for the lack of upside-down exclamation point]. She didn’t know what _chata_ meant, so she looked it up in her dictionary, and one of the definitions listed was “flat nose.” Poor girl. We tried to cheer her up, but it was no use. [And no, the bottled concentrate isn’t good enough for me. I’m a purist.]