Archaic Drinks: Pinole

Pinole gives me shivers up the spine. When I eat it or drink it, I am transported back through the millenia to travelers, warriors, muleteers.

So what is pinole? To make it you toast grains of maize until cooked and gold-brown. Then you grind them on the metate (saddle quern, simple grindstone) until you have a powder. Today you may add piloncillo (sugar ground from brown cones), or regular refined sugar, and perhaps ground cinnamon or ground dried orange peel.

Here’s my current stash of pinole. I’m lucky that I live in an area where you can still buy it. It’s never really become a commercial product and leads a ghostly existence on the edges of commerce. I go to the market and look for an old lady sitting outside on a small stool with a plastic bucket of this powder. I’ve never seen it in a grocery store or supermarket.

Here’s a handful of the powder. It has a wonderful smell. And why is it so important?

Because for travelers and warriors every society needed a dried, portable, instant food (camping foods are just johnny come latelies). This was it for Mexico. Ready cooked, it kept for ever, was easy to carry on long trips, and could be eaten as is. Apart from the powder being a bit clinging in the mouth, it is really delicious.

Or if you have some, you can add cold water. The powder does not dissolve but makes a very refreshing (and again delicious) suspension. In the second photo you can see tiny pieces of ground grain floating in the liquid.

Or if you are even luckier, you can add hot water. The drink thickens quite a bit and even today the poor in Mexico relish this on a freezing winter morning.

A foodstuff that jumps the centuries.

One in a series on archaic drinks, largely grain drinks.  What do I mean by archaic?  That they are drinks that may very well go a very long way back in history, drinks that verge into gruels. Today they are gradually slipping out of use.

• ← Global Migration of Dishes and Recipes IV
• Pet Birds in the Kitchen →