New York, as the City of Immigrants, is the City of Coincidental Comestible Revelations.  And I’m not just talking about the Ethiopian restaurants or the kimchi tacos. I’m talking about Hispanic fare, the cousins of the common taco and burrito that everyone in the country has experienced.  The Mango-on-a-Stick, in which the fruit is carved into a petaled flower shape and rubbed in lime juice, salt, and hot sauce, was an early discovery in my life here.  Recently, I have discovered Mexican drinkable oatmeal.

I discovered the oatmeal working a residency at a dual Spanish-English middle school in the Bronx.  When I arrive at 7:30, all four corners of the school’s main intersection are occupied with men and women selling empanadas, ginger tea, and the oatmeal from coolers and ten-gallon thermoses.  For two bucks I get twenty ounces of delicious oatmeal I can sip from a disposable coffee lid.  By my best guess and what I find poking around online, the oatmeal is soaked overnight, and in the morning my man on the north-west corner mixes it at a low simmer with water, milk, sugar, and cardamom.  The result is a sweet cream slightly thicker than eggnog and as healthy as regular, spoon-scarfed oatmeal.

The mornings I drink this, I can go harder and longer than any morning begun with a bagel or with eggs.  Is this the one example from that distinctively American class of food created to be consumed with one hand while otherwise walking, driving, or talking on the phone that actually builds up your body rather than getting it all muckety inside?

Maybe.  Tell me of some other candidates and we’ll try to figure this thing out.

Here are two basic recipes.  What they make obvious is that the blueprint is simple and intrinsically easy to tweak.  Maybe I’ll try my hand at it some weekend.  If you do the same, share those results too.